The consent of the governed

Our muted puzzlement in December 2005 following the EPRDF’s announcement it would charge the leaders and members of the opposition with the crime of genocide is now turning into a deranged retroactive scream in our heads.

Five months in politics is a lifetime. Since December, Berhanu Nega and his fellow political dissenters now rendered criminal defendants have decided not to fight the EPRDF’s charges in court. By filing incendiary charges impossible to fight in a Third World courtroom, the EPRDF seems bent on sending the nation on a historical collision course. Unfortunately for Ethiopia, an entire people’s outcry—in the country and abroad—has not forced a reckoning in the rank and file of the EPRDF.

But how does one defend against the charge of genocide? All precedent tells us is that those who commit genocide—the Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, and Milosovics have never been tried, found guilty, and sentenced in courts set up by their own people. Our very own Mengistu falls in that category. Also, the convictions have always required the United Nations or the Allied Powers after the Second World War to set up monstrous tribunals that have attempted to give some semblance of timely, and non-retributive justice administered to the most responsible mass killers. Immensly perplexing is how in the world could people who are not part of a government’s security apparatus or acting on behalf of such entity be charged of the crime of genocide when they have not committed such act or do not have the means to commit it? The EPRDF has thrown us in a bizarre world where those who have done the killing have charged those whose only crime is to demand an end to tyranny through peaceful means.

The questions were far too circuitous for our linear non-legal minds so we decided to Google around. Dozens of web pages later to be stored in Google’s search caches for posterity and possible review by the U.S. D.O.J. our laymen minds had no option but to reach the indubitable conclusion that the EPRDF’s genocide and treason charges have no basis in logic, precedent, and perhaps most important, love for country. Self-preservation has compelled the EPRDF to create pitiful courtrooms in which university professors, human rights advocates (Professor Mesfin and others), at least four prominent lawyers (Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, Mr. Bertukan Demeksa, Daniel Bekele, and Netsanet Demissie), fourteen independent journalists, elected parliamentarians, and average Ethiopians who dared to voice their political dissent are fighting for their lives. The EPRDF’s courtrooms are sham-filled edifices of tyranny.

We tried to understand genocide and how that crime is adjudicated in domestic and international arenas by looking at ten genocides that have taken place in our lifetime. In all these instances, the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are those in power. The EPRDF’s world, as in many cases, is a parallel world where hype is turned into reason and hyped reason into governance. More than anytime, ethiopundit’s oft-repeated advice to not believe the hype has hit the collective conscious of Carpe Diem Ethiopia like a ton of bricks.

Bear with us.

Germany, Nuremberg Trials (1945-49)

The mother of genocide trials also known as the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, held between 1945 to 1949 in Nuremberg, Germany, tried 24 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany as well as lesser war criminals and medical doctors who participated in Nazi human experimentation. Most were tried and found guilty of war crimes and the crime of genocide(over 6,000,000 just counting the Jewish holocaust). Those charged with the crime of genocide in Nuremberg, Germany, were members of the Nazi government or acting on behalf of the Nazi government.

Cambodia (1975-79) This month, twenty-seven years after the brutal Khmer Rouge was ousted, the current Cambodian government with the collaboration of United Nations is attempting to close the chapter on the Khmer Rouge’s killing spree that left two million Cambodians dead (the most conservative figures put it at 1.7 million) . The gruesome Cambodian story is recounted in a recent Washington Post story story and it seems likely the first defendants from the Pol Pot regime may appear in court as early as 2007. In any case, those who will be charged with the crime of genocide in Cambodia are members of the Cambodian government and/or security agents acting on its behalf.

Ethiopia (1978)

By 1997 the EPRDF managed to file charges of genocide, war crimes, homicide, and willful injury against 5,198 members of the Derg regime (2,952 in absentia). The number of dead Ethiopians during the Derg’s 17-year rule are in the hundreds of thousands but the genocide portion—the Red Terror killings number approximately 10,000. The achievements of the Special Prosecutor's Office are many but it has shown us that justice delayed is justice denied--seriously folks it has been more than 15 years since the demise of the Derg! The delays are starting to become worse than the crimes. In any event, those charged with the crime of genocide by our very own EPRDF were all members of the Derg regime or agents that killed on its behalf.

Rwanda (1994) The extermination of an estimated 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interhamwe and the Impuzamugambi during a period of 100 days from April 6 to July 15, 1994 has come to be known as the Rwandan genocide. The Interhamwe (responsible for the majority of the killings—up to 800,000)—were led by Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the architect of the genocide. His death squads ranged at will across the country, and any church or place of refuge that refused them was simply taken down. In 1994 the Security Council established an international tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania (ICTR) and the trials are still ongoing. Similar trials are being conducted in Rwanda under the modified traditional communal system known as the Gacaca. In total, up to 10,000 villages are expected to hold Gacaca trials by next year to hear the cases of more than 100,000 suspects. More than 200,000 Rwandan citizens have been chosen from local communities to sit on judicial panels that will preside over these trials. In any event, those charged with the crime of genocide were either acting on behalf of the Rwandan military, its security agents, or the forces these two entities unleashed.

Bosnia (2001) Slobodan Milosovic was charged of the crime of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. The charges included one count of genocide, one count of complicity with genocide, and an additional 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The charges are based on Milosevic’s "command responsibility" as President of Serbia and his alleged participation in a joint criminal enterprise. The charges covered the shelling of Sarajevo; the mass murder of thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, both UN-proclaimed "safe areas;" and for the Omarska detention camp. The tribunal charged Milosovic and other Serbian officials for the death of approximately 10,000 Bosnians.

India, Gujarat Trials (2002) In February 2002 government-sponsored massacres led to the deaths of more than 2000 muslims in Gujarat, India. While the outcome of the trials has done little to bring the perpetrators of the crime responsible before an Indian court, Human Rights Watch and Concerned Citizens Tribunal of Gujarat published detailed reports holding a Gujarat provincial minister and his government responsible for the killings. The Asian Legal Resource Center’s written submissions to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights should be read with Ethiopia in mind:

For their part, the authorities in Gujarat have demonstrated how utterly the system can be brutalized to further violate the rights of victims. In Gujarat, the same police force responsible for the atrocities has been charged with investigating the cases going to trial, and the government responsible for what occurred has been appointing the prosecutors. Although the National Human Rights Commission explicitly recommended that the Government of India permit independent agencies to investigate the cases, hear the trials in other states and provide witness protection, these recommendations were unheeded. (Emphasis ours).

Those charged with the crime of genocide in Gujarat, India, were members of the Indian government.

Sudan, Darfur (2003- ) In February 2003 two rebel groups attacked Sudanese government forces and installations and the government retaliated by recruiting and arming an Arab militia (the Janjawit) to do its dirty work. The government launched an aerial bombardment campaign to support the ground attacks by the Janjawit. The conflict has resulted in the mass killing and displacement of non-Arab villagers in the Darfur region of Western Sahara and the United Nations estimates that 180,000 people have died in the fighting and two million others have been displaced (although a recent British Parliamentary Report estimates that over 300,000 people have already died.) Fast forward to January 2005 and the Security Council’s International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur found that the Government of Sudan and the Janjawit are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law accounting to crimes under international law but that the government had not pursued a policy of genocide in Darfur. It nevertheless identified 51 individuals responsible for human rights violations and recommended an immediate trial at the International Criminal Court. Possible indictments will be handed upon members of the Sudanese military and other agents of the Sudanese government. Note: the tragedy in Darfur is reaching historic proportions. This site provides daily updates on the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Congo (2004) In Congo, fifteen senior army and police officials stood a genocide trial in 2004 for their suspected role in the disappearance six years ago at Brazzaville's river port of hundreds of refugees who were returning from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo where they had fled the previous year due to the civil war in Congo. The Congolese court found the 15 defendants were not individually responsible for committing war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity in relation to the events in 1999. But the court ordered the Congolese government to pay 10 million CFA francs (15,000 euros, 18,500 dollars) to the relatives of 86 of the missing refugees. The court dismissed the damages claims of the families of another 102 of the missing refugees. The decision left the families of the dead bitterly disappointed but on its face, the court tried to reach a somewhat Solomonic decision. But let’s not get too far off the topic—again, the refugees were killed by the Congolese government or by agents acting on its behalf.

Liberia (2006) As if the havoc he unleashed in Cote d’Ivoire before seizing the Presidency in Liberia was not enough, during his tenure as President from 1997 to 2003, Boston jail house escape artist Charles Taylor managed to commit several heinous acts including arming and training rebels (the Revolutionary United Front—RUF) in Sierra Leone. More than 50,000 people were killed and in 2003, a United Nations justice tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest charging him of war crimes in Sierra Leone. The charges against the former despot include killings, rape, and all sorts of violence against women and children. Taylor is now facing tthe music in a Sierra Leone courtroom. The killings were all carried out by members of the Liberian government and/or its agents.

Iraq (2006) The butcher of Bagdad finally got what was coming to him when Iraq’s authorities charged Saddam Hussein of committing genocide against 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. Saddam’s savage Operation Anfal against the Kurds in 1988 included the use of mustard gas and nerve agents which killed and maimed rural villagers and drove them out of their homes en masse. Kurds were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detention involving thousands of civilians where homes and houses of worshippers were leveled without reason or military necessity. Those who exterminated the Kurds were members of the Iraqi government.

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You get where we’re headed. So let’s go there and try to draw some conclusions:

Ethiopia (2005-2006)

In May 2005, Ethiopia conducted its third parliamentarian elections. A few days after the polls closed, the opposition had won an unprecedented number of seats in the federal legislature and had also swept the Addis elections. Then the process unraveled. It soon became clear the EPRDF was not going to give up its power. The electorate, aware that the election was rigged and its votes stolen in broad daylight, did what every electorate does: it voiced its protest. In June and November 2005 government security forces whose identity is shrouded with utmost secrecy shot at random and their bullets found the youngest and even non-protesting folks on the street. In its wake, the EPRDF left more than 80 dead in Addis Ababa alone. The numbers in the rural areas are unknown. Crackdowns led to massive roundups and detentions at Dedessa and Kaliti. Insanity has reigned in the country and charges have been finally been brought forth--but in the parallel world of the EPRDF, genocide and murder charges will be brought against . . . the victims!

The questions we must ask and answer:

Are those charged of committing genocide in 2005 members of the Ethiopian government or its agents? NO! What is the number of Ethiopians killed by the CUDP: ZERO!

When Bereket Simon compared the Ethiopian democratic movement with the Interhamwe, no one knew the metaphor was intended to plant seeds in Ethiopia and abroad to subsequently justify possible post-election crackdowns. The oft-repeated EPRDF reference to the Rwandan experience is deceptively erroneous: the Interhamwe was a government-sponsored mob and was not a civilian campaign that rolled out of control—it was, as Human Rights Watch described, a campain in which the early organiziers were military and administrative officials. The Rwanda genocide was a state-sponsored killing and the EPRDF's disengenous analogy was designed to create fear among the governed to ultimately justify bogus genocide and treason charges.

When asked for the immediate and unconditional release of the Kaliti detainees, Meles Zenawi, in sardonic pretense that fails the giggle test says he respects the independence of Ethiopia’s judiciary and that the judicial process is out of his hands. Foreign observers take this statement at face value, say hi to Ato Hailu Shawel in jail and depart from Addis. Meanwhile, the prisoners of conscience are rotting away in jail charged with crimes they never committed.

The day a judge convicts any of the 84 prisoners of conscious will be a day that will live in infamy for Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The EPRDF can end the eternal condemnation of a people it claims to lead. The solution is in its hands: end the sham trials poste-haste and let Ato Hailu Shawel, Dr. Berhanu Nega, W/o Bertukan Demksa, Drs. Yacob and Mesfin, Daniel and Netsanet, and all prisoners of conscience spend Fasika with their families as free men and women. Then give the leaders of the CUDP the option to take their seats in Parliament and City Hall. If they refuse to do so, respect their choice, and call for immediate or early parliamentary elections.

In the end, the only thing that matters is the consent of the governed.

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In addition to Ethiomedia's and Ethiopian Review's standing vigils, the advocacy sites below are must reads:

Save Nega.org, Free Yacob, Advocacy Ethiopia, Daniel Bekele's Freedom Blog, E-Law.org