Yale University’s Hilary Matfess details the creeping authoritarianism in Ethiopia and its dangers for the country and the United States.
The politicization of government bureaucracy, the legislative infrastructure criminalizing dissent, and the party’s co-optation of ethnic and political mobilizations have all left Ethiopia dangerously and fundamentally unstable. The current unrest in Ethiopia is not a phase that will fade with the pronouncement of a new prime minister, but rather a reflection of a system in which modest reform and dissent have been made nearly impossible. Until the government remedies the marginalization of ethnic groups and ceases to perpetrate gross human rights abuses, it will experience protests, potentially escalating beyond the low levels of violence that have characterized the clashes between Oromo protesters and the government thus far. Putting a new face to the leadership of this system will not be enough to stabilize the country—radical democratizing reforms are necessary. Failing this, the country (and its hand-wringing security partners) can expect continued resistance and instability.
The government has frequently used the law to imprison political dissidents and journalists critical of the government. One of the most high-profile instances of such an abuse of the ATP was the detention of the Zone9 Bloggers, a group of young writers who were accused by the government of “using social media to create instability in the country.” One of the bloggers recalled that their writing was “mostly on social issues—things like human rights, the issue of political prisoners,” noting that though “the government calls them criminals… we don’t call them criminals, we call them political activists.” During their detention on charges of inciting violence, the activists were subjected to physical and psychological torture. “Everything is humiliation there,” one activist told me. While being held in Maekolwi and Kality prisons, the dissident recalled being accused of being “paid by the Western government,” and said that the prison guards accused them of “doing this activity to get money, that we are selling our country just to get money.” […] CONTINUE READING
