Are the Attacks on the History of the Ethiopian Students Movement Really About the Movement?
By Ambaye Kidane
Ethiopian Review, April 1998
Lately, bashing the Ethiopian Students Movement (ESM) has become the past-time of many commentators. Despite the reluctance of many to be drawn into the fray lest it would lead into unnecessary bickering among members of the opposition, some individuals have persisted in making condemnatory statements, many of them fallacies blended with some facts about the leaders of the ESM. Considering that no coherent attempt has been made by these critics to really look at the legacy of the ESM, I could not help but wonder if the whole debate on the ESM is really about ESM.
When one ventures into a critical analysis of the past history of the ESM, it is important not to lose sight of the specific period under discussion, the prevailing socio-economic conditions and the various forces operating in Ethiopia. However, in many of the comments attacking the ESM, there is no discussion of the socio-economic condition that prevailed in the country. There is no discussion of the nature of successive central governments. Nor is there any attempt to examine the historical background and the role of sectarian movements in Ethiopia. What we see is just condemnation of the ESM as if it was a movement that operated in a vacuum. We should indeed take a hard look at the past. However, what we see is, instead of examining and educating us on what went wrong in our country by presenting all the facts, a crude and dishonest attempt to blame the predicament that befell Ethiopia on the ESMa movement that ceased to exist nearly two decades ago. Some appear to imply that had those students not raised various issues of justice, the February 1974 people's uprising, and the traumatic events that followed it, would not have happened. Some lay the blame for the rise of the nationalities question (I am using the phrase for lack of a better term), for the secession of Eritrea, and the usurpation of power by the TPLF/EPRDF on the ESM. And their attack on the ESM is done in such a way that it appears to be a systematic attempt at a rehabilitation of the Dergthe most brutal government in the history of modern Ethiopia.
The ESM was the collective effort of Ethiopian Students for Social Justice
To avoid the temptation by some to ascribe to ESM anything done or said by any individual (or individuals) who, at one point or another, was a university student, I would start by clarifying what I mean by the ESM. The ESM I am talking about is the collective effort of Ethiopian students to oppose age-old injustices that they witnessed in Ethiopia. This is the movement that was born at Haile Selassie I University (HSIU) in the 1960s and later expanded to high schools and overseas to include Ethiopian students studying abroad. Its key dreams were to bring about equality for all ethnic groups, democracy, land reform and some form of participatory government. As accurately indicated by Yonas Kifle in the Ethiopian Electronic Mail Distribution Network (EEDN) in a message entitled "Dream turned nightmare," it was "a movement with a dream... and its dream was disseminated, loud and clear, through a myriad of its publications."
This movementthe ESM that we know in the pastcease to exist in the latter part of the 1970s. While the Ethiopian students were the most persistent voice for change, the ESM's relative importance started declining with the advent of the February 1974 people's upsurge, the ascendancy of organized pan-Ethiopian movements (e.g. EPRP, MEISONE, and others), and the overthrow of the monarchy by the Army. What was left of the ESM as a collective effort of students against dictatorship ceased to exist in Ethiopia when it was bloodily suppressed by the military junta in the mid-to-late 1970s. It ceased to exist abroad when it was fractured into various factions as a result of the disastrous failure of the movement against the Derg spearheaded by organizations many of whose leaders grew out of ESM.
The ESM was crushed by the Derg along with the Ethiopian People's dream
The February 1974 people's upsurgethe ultimate expression of Ethiopians wish for economic, political and social changedid not happen because those "damned student leaders" planned and orchestrated it. The 1974 people's upsurge was the culmination of the various problems that were simmering in the country. And it happened only when the various segments of the society rose spontaneously to air their grievances. While the February 1974 upsurge had a number of underlying causes that were gradually eroding Haile Selassie's regime, it is useful to recall the key events that precipitated the various segments of the Ethiopian society to join the popular movement for change.
As I indicated earlier, the Ethiopian students were the most vocal and persistent voice for social change. For example, it was the Haile Selassie I University students who brought the plight of the starving millions to the general public when the massive famine that killed more than 200,000 people in 1972 became known. They were the first to respond by fasting and redirecting the money to drought relief. They also organized a campaign to collect funds for famine-stricken people. Many observers had commented that the attempt to keep the massive famine hidden from Ethiopians and the international public was one of the key factors that undermined Ethiopians' confidence in the government of the day. As John Markakis, a close observer of events in Ethiopia, noted if drought was indeed a natural disaster, the famine was undoubtedly a man-made catastrophe.
The crisis facing the government was further aggravated when hefty increase in the price of fuel led to a general strike by taxi drivers. The taxi drivers' strike was later joined by a nation-wide strike by teachers demanding educational reform. When an army mutiny broke out in the 4th Army Division in Negele Borena, followed by other mutinies in Asmera and Debre Zeit, the regime's ability to use the military as a means of repression virtually ended. The unrest in the country spread like wild fire to include industrial workers demanding workplace rights, aviation workers, municipal workers in Addis Abeba, the clergy, Ethiopian Muslims and many other groups. It should be stressed that this wide-ranging protest movement in 1974 was originally motivated by the specific economic and social demands of the various segments of the Ethiopian society. It was not orchestrated from the "headquarters" of the ESM. When the army usurped power and suppressed the limited liberties gained by Ethiopians, it put itself on a collision course with students, workers, teachers and other segments of the civilian population. The struggle took a qualitatively new turn when the Dreg showed its brute nature by executing the 59 senior officials of the former regime, including 5 of its members who advocated civilian government. The Military Junta had already shown its oppressive potential when, on September 11, 1974, it deposed the Emperor and at the same time curtailed the hard won democratic liberties of the people by declaring a state of emergency.
As subsequent developments showed, once the Military Junta crushed the popular movement, Ethiopians' dream for a better country turned into a nightmare. Ethiopians to this day continued to be subjected to arbitrary rule by successive repressive governments. Hence, those who demonize the ESM should not gloss over the various factors the propelled the turn of events at dizzying pace. They should also not overlook the evolution of events during the 17 years of the Derg's rule. Ignoring the evolution of events in that traumatic era and simply focussing on the ESM that ended nearly two decades ago amounts to a systematic effort at rehabilitating the Derg.
Ethnic Nationalism was not created by the ESM
One of the fallacies often repeated by those attempting to lay the blame for the predicament the country is in on the leaders of the ESM is that they planted the issue of nationalities in Ethiopia. However, what they intentionally ignore is the fact that there were widespread separatist movements long before some leaders of the ESM raised the issue of nationalities. There were movements that preceded the rise of the Oromo Liberation Front. The Oromo movement led by Wako But in Bale raged for seven years before it was brought to an end by Haile Selassie's government through negotiation. There were decades of low-intensity armed clashes in the Ogaden, partly encouraged by the irredentist design of the Somalia government. Separatist movements were operating in Eritrea long before Walelign Mekonen's tract on the question of nationalities appeared in 1968. What came to be known as "Africa's longest war" started in 1961 with the formation of the Eritrean Liberation Front, not to mention that there were various groups with separatist tendencies even in the 1950s.
In many countries, it is not necessarily the sophistication of a separatist movements that fuels their growth, but the way central governments try to solve real or perceived regional and/or ethnic discontents. Ethiopia was not an exception. In the Eritrean case, the termination of the federal arrangement in 1962 and the central government's effort to muzzle discontent through indiscriminate repression helped galvanize the separatist movements. The separatist movement in the 1960s was largely confined among the Moslems in the western lowlands. For example, according to Tesfatsion Medhane, the ELF, upon its formation, "preached sectarian goals, stressing that Haile Selassie was a Christian despot and that most of the Christians in Eritrea favored union with Ethiopia." (Eritrea: Dynamics of a National Question) Furthermore, despite more than a decade of armed skirmishes with the Ethiopian army, the Eritrean movements were marred with regional and tribal conflicts that led to the rise of various splinter groups that were fighting each other while fighting the Ethiopian army.
So what explained the spread of separatism in Eritrea? It is my opinion that the advent of the Derg with its absolute emphasis that the solution to all problems lies only in the barrel of a gun is the most important factor that strengthened separatists in Eritrea. The existence of Arab countries hostile to Ethiopia played a role as a source of arms and financing to the separatist movements. Nonetheless, the biggest boost to the separatist movements came from the atrocities committed by the Dreg after it usurped power in 1974. After it violently crushed General Aman Andom's effort to find a peaceful solution (who had a huge potential to bypass the ELF/EPLF leadership and talk directly to the population), the army death squads, in a scenario that was later to be repeated in the rest of Ethiopia on a grand scale, unleashed a campaign of terror in the major cities of Eritrea. The atmosphere of fear that ensued led to the largest exodus of Eritrea's youth swelling the ranks of the fronts, particularly the EPLF led by Issayas Afewerki which until the mid-1970s was a fringe movement in Eritrea. Numerous campaigns targeting the civilian population ensured that the separatist sentiment spread even to the Christian highlands. They also did irreparable damage to the feeling of Ethiopiawinet, particularly among the Christian highlanders. In short, the Derg atrocities in Eritrea had done infinitely more to strengthen the ELF/EPLF than Walelign Mekonen's rhetorical tract on "the question of nationalities."
Note: Although not directly related the purpose of my article, I would like to mention in passing that the 1985 famine and the consequent relief assistance from international donors was skilfully used by the EPLF and TPLF to strengthen their grip on people living under the areas they controlled. It also raised their diplomatic profile.
For those who believe that the unity of a country and its peoples can be maintained by force of arms, including committing atrocities on civilians, I would like to note that the Derg had failed even on that account. Mengistu Haile Mariam and his clique increased the size of the Ethiopian army, but at the same time eroded its ability to fight.
The numerous purges unleashed on the senior officers partly explain why the largest standing army in Sub-Saharan Africa lost to what some observers called aragtagarmy of separatist movements. Mengistu and his clique had done more harm to the professional leadership of the Ethiopian army since the late 1970s than the demands of ESM leaders for a peaceful resolution of the Eritrean problem a decade earlier.
It should also be recalled that by 1980, the Derg had reversed most of the territorial gains of the EPLF/ELF with the exception Nakfa and the Sahel region. Between 1980 and 1991, there was hardly any multi-ethnic opposition group in the rest of Ethiopia that could be blamed for undermining the Dreg's war efforts in Eritrea. How come Ethiopia is left in tatters after decades of human sacrifices numbering in the hundreds of thousands and the loss of property worth billions of dollars? If the demonizers of the ESM are serious about learning from the past, they should undertake a sober-minded assessment of such questions instead of blaming the recent turn of events on the ESM leadership who sacrificed so much seeking solutions to the problems they saw in their country.
Setting the record straight on the issue of colonial question
One of the most serious accusations made against the ESM concerns the issue of characterizing Ethiopia as a colonial country. Any body who followed Ethiopian politics in the last two-and-half decades (you don't need to be an active participant to know what happened!) recalls that Eritrean movements and other nationalists (e.g. OLF and its 'historians') have made the "colonial question" the basis of their claim for separatism. It was one of the issues on which the ESM, particularly Ethiopian Students Union in North America (ESUNA), waged political battles with ethnic nationalists. So why are some misrepresenting ESM's position on the issue? I will not dwell on the answer. But to set the record straight, I will quote from ESUNA's paper on the issue.
A glance at the present reality in Ethiopia clearly shows that the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution has found expression in the sphere of the nationality question. This is why we must wage a struggle in two fronts: against big nationality, chauvinism and against local nationalism. The paper raises the question: Is the Eritrean Question a Colonial Question? And it answers it this way:
"...The 'theory' which calls the Eritrean question a colonial question is a total absurdity. In other words, the fundamental point of departure for the strategic and tactical thinking of Eritrean nationalists is wrong. This fundamental error has led certain persons to commit a whole series of other errors on many vital issues of principle. First they have failed to appreciate the fact that the principal contradiction in the Ethiopian state is not between oppressor and oppressed nationalities but between the masses of all nationalities in the entire state, on the one hand, and feudalism and imperialism, on the other. Second, certain persons have failed to understand Eritrean feudalists and compradors are not friends but enemies of both the Eritrean and Ethiopian masses. And, third, certain persons have failed to understand that all the laboring masses in the state are oppressed by a single state machinery which is in the service of the ruling groups of all nationalities. In short, the so-called theory of colonialism has prevented Eritrean nationalists from having a correct grasp of the interrelationships between the different social classes in Eritrea and Ethiopia proper; and consequently, of the interrelations between the revolutions in the two respective regions." Combat, Volume 5, Number 2)
If you strip the above statement of its Marxist-Leninist jargon and rhetoric (which was the fad in those days), it is clear where the ESUNA's leaders stood on this question. They might have said many things that are unpalatable for many. But characterizing Ethiopia as colonial state was not one of their 'sins'.
There were indeed lessons from the past
There are indeed many lessons to be gained from an objective assessment of the history of the ESM. The ESM participants' concern for the plight of their people, their courage in standing up to successive repressive regimes, and their selfless love for the mass of people who financed their education are attributes that should be emulated by all who care about their country and people. To quote Teshale Tibebu (ETR, September 1997) "...the celebrated Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM) is a glorious example of 'Ityopyawinnet' at work, both in theory and practice. Overcoming ethic, religious, gender, and class distinctions, the modern sons and daughters of Ethiopia told the ruling class their time is up. Their message was loud and clear: Ethiopia needs change for the betterment of its down trodden majority." Call it radical 'Ityopyawinnet' or what, it is 'Ityopyawinnet.' When Amhara, Tegrean, Oromo, Gurage, etc. intellectuals of the ESM raised their voices together and gave their lives together in defiance of the oppressive orders of Haile Selassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam, it was in the name of 'Ityopyawinnet,' not of Amharanet, Tegrenet, Oromonnet, Guragennet, etc. Some of these are the traditions of the ESM that are being tarnished by the current critics of the ESM.
I am not attempting a blanket defence of the ESM. My response to some of the demonizers of the ESM is mainly driven by what I see as an attempt to invoke the past to settle current political disputes. Like other commentators, I believe that if we are really serious about learning from the past to gain lessons for the future, the mode of conduct of the ESM and the organized groups that grew out of it should be critically examined. Otherwise, as they say, if we forget history we are bound to repeat it. But the assessment should not be done in a way that rehabilitates the Dreg.
An examination of the ESM, particularly when viewed with the benefit of hindsight, reveals that the active participants of the ESM, and the organizations that grew out of it, had shortcomings that are still relevant today. But these are largely mistakes in the way they conducted their struggle against the autocracy and later against the military dictatorship. They advocated the downfall of Haile Selassie's government without serious thought about what is to replace it. There was a tendency to look at issues in black and white. The language of the ESM leaders was polemical and, at times, inflammatory.
Many mistakes were also committed by organizations many of whose leaders came from the ranks of the of the ESM. A lot of blunders were made in the way political differences between (and within) organizations were handled. In this regard, we should recall that political and personality differences that started among the ESM leaders outside Ethiopia had contributed to the atrocities committed by the Derg.
One can also argue that, driven by a political strategy based in the consideration that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," they miscalculated the alignment of forces in Ethiopia. Some argue that they tend to be soft on ethnic nationalists. And I think this is partly true. However, at the same time, a sincere attempt to assess the past should also register the fact that there was a period in Ethiopian history when the EPRP (one of the organizations many of whose leaders grew out of the ESM) was the common target of the Dreg and the current guys in power (the TPLF). And the main reason why the TPLF and other nationalist groups targeted the EPRP (and in a perverse way were allies in action with the Derg) was their strong opposition to the EPRP's position on the question of nationalities. That is why an intentionally oversimplified treatment of the evolution of the nationality question and the role of the ESM and other organizations does not do justice to the issue.
Past mistakes of all protagonists in Ethiopia's political landscape should indeed be discussed to gain lessons for the current struggle. However, presenting distorted fragments of the past and labelling those who advise restraint does not strengthen the unity of pan-Ethiopian forces. We should also learn from the Derg's fiasco that the unity of a country such as Ethiopia, a country with diverse ethnic groups with real or perceived historical grievances and elites ready to fan them, cannot be strengthened by sheer sloganeerism. It is imperative that some quarters realize this fact at a time when Ethiopians are faced by a government that is currently institutionalizing parochial ethnicism.
Have we really learned from the failures of the past?
With the demise of the Derg regime 1991, whose only legitimacy to power was the barrel of the gun, there was a golden opportunity to end the cycle of violence that had gripped the country for decades. But that opportunity was lost when the TPLF/EPRDF, instead of helping the creation of an inclusive government that could marshal the people's energy in the fight to end endemic poverty, embarked on a path of institutionalizing sectarian ethnicism. Instead of ending the terrible legacy of the past by focusing on national reconciliation, it chose to create a politically destructive environment in which some groups are singled out for propaganda attack by inciting historical grievances. Organizations "that were in the EPRDF government ruling coalition presided over the heinous killings of Amharas in Bedeno, Arba Gugu and other places in the early 1990s. There are currently numerous reports of atrocities on Oromos in the name of fighting the OLF. The historical irony is a group that effectively used atrocities made by two former regimes in mobilizing support for its cause chose to do the same thing once it took power. In short, the current regime has not learned any lessons from the past.
A close scrutiny of political debates in our media also casts doubt if we have really learned from the failures in the past. A particular shortcoming that was common among the former leaders of the ESM and organizations that grew out of it was the absence of a culture of building political consensus. The failure to build alignments on the basis of the least common denominator that was the hallmark of the political struggles in the past remains a problem among those who consider themselves to be the enlightened Ethiopians today.
When I see the chronic tendency to be quarrelsome, often on secondary issues, I say we have yet to learn from our past mistakes. On various occasions, in various contexts, we have seen numerous cases of systematic campaigns to tarnish the reputation and image of individuals. Some are attacked because they guarded their organizational independence; others are targeted because they did not go far enough in the eye of some groups. Still others are condemned only because they did not choose a method of struggle chosen as the only way by some.
This is the reason I say the current political disputes is not really about the ESM. For some it is about scoring points against other members of the opposition with whom some do not see eye to eye. For others it maybe a systematic effort at rehabilitating the----. Otherwise, why bring distorted fragments of the past in the current political disputes when so much is at stake in the present.
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Ambaye Kidane resides in Toronto, Canada
