Crisis Group, an international think tank that assesses countries’ security status, has recently characterized Ethiopia as a country going through opportunities and challenges amid the transition period. And experts weighed the report’s implication and the overall scenarios.
The report: ‘10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020’— by Robert Malley, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, states that Ethiopia is among the ten countries to watch this year.
The forecast, published by Foreign Policy, says the situation in the country holds both promise and peril for the year 2020. The report tries to look into the bold steps taken by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to open the political landscape.
The report also praised the prime minister’s role in ending a decades-old military standoff with neighboring Eritrea, welcoming rebels and banned political parties, and appointing reformers to key institutions. He has won accolades at home and abroad – including the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, it states.
However, the report asserts that the country has faced enormous challenges among which are political and socio-economic grievances of the public and ethnic tensions.
Besides ethnic tensions, the report also estimates that the elections scheduled for May 2020 could go violent and divisive, as candidates outbid each other in ethnic appeals or votes. The confrontations among the proponents of the country’s ethnic federalist system, which devolves authority to regions defined along ethnolinguistic lines, and antagonists of the system-who argue that an ethnically-based system harms national unity, may escalate into ethnic strife, the report argues.
Reacting on the report, Gen. Tsadekan Gebretesnay, former Ethiopian army chief of staff shares his thoughts, on the security and political situation of the country, with The Ethiopian Herald. He says: “The report is not something to panic about, but I do share the concerns of the Crisis Group that the country may face grave crisis by 2020.”
Political parties, the government, and the public need to work in unison to counterbalance the brewing tension between and among different elites, he says. Unless politicians do compromise their stances and come to a negotiating table, peace and security cannot be ensured through coercive force or the military power of the government, he adds.
“As the report indicates, ethnic tension is one of the major factors that are inciting violence around the country. This, unless addressed timely and properly, would pose grave ramifications on the country. And this could throw the country in a bottomless pit of crisis.”
With the government having no proper roadmap, people are getting into confusion and are casting doubts on the rights of nations, nationalities, and self-rule, and this confusion could lead to clashes. Hence, the government should lead the initiative to devise a roadmap that would steer the country in the right political transition and protect the rights enshrined in the constitutions, he argues.
There is no winner in violence or conflict. The destruction is mutual and the country will be vulnerable to external threats as well. Hence, the country needs to allow a continuing involvement of political parties, he adds.
Minas Feseha is an advisor to the Minister of Peace, and an expert in Peace, security and conflict affairs. In an interview with The Ethiopian Herald, he described the report as: “a shallow analysis that failed to depict the country’s situation properly.”
It is only a snapshot analysis, according to my perception; it lacks the proper methodology, approach, and theory, he adds.
“It is also unscientific to jump into the conclusion that the country would face the fate of Yugoslavia without making a critical assessment into the national, historical and political contexts of the country. But this is not to deny that the country is facing security challenges. But the report seems to have been exaggerated,” he argues.
The report runs against the international community’s recognition of the country and its leadership for their achievements— in opening up democracy and economy. Suffice it to say, the Nobel Peace Prize award and other similar recognitions that the country obtained may show the extent of the shallowness of the report.
Casting his views on the report, Minas also says that Ethiopia’s political dynamics are not predictable.
In many countries, conflict is mostly stoked by governments, but currently, the Ethiopian government is only facilitating the political landscape. If the government had taken actions against instigators of conflict, the situation of the country would have gone from the frying pan to the fire. This is what the report lacks in analyzing the situation deeply, Minas adds
“Some of the conflicts we have been facing and that we may be facing in the future have one way or the other roots to the bad political legacy we inherited. Put it another way, the negative role of elite politicians and the low level of awareness of the public towards political and democratic rights have their bad repercussions,” he says.
The same negative predictions were hanging over the Sidama referendum but the process was one of the best democratic signs of progress witnessed in the country, he says, adding that this gives a hope that there is nothing the country cannot overcome.
The crisis group’s prediction that the country will get into chaos in the upcoming election is premature. However, just like other countries, elections could pose some challenges which would properly be overcome if political parties and the people work together, he concludes.
The Ethiopian Herald January 17/2020
BY DESTA GEBREHIWOT
