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<\/p>\nAn old Ethiopian aphorism propounds, \u201cIf spiders could gather up their silk in a single twine, they could tie up a lion.\u201d In other words, many weak and powerless people could band together and defeat a mighty adversary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Wright Edelman,\u00a0founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund,\u00a0said<\/a>: \u201cYou just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.\u201d<\/p>\n The spiders and fleas today are committed Ethiopian immigrants in the U.S. who teamed up with their House representatives to\u00a0pass a human rights resolution<\/a>\u00a0for Ethiopia on\u00a0April 10<\/a>. The bite of the grassroots activists made the regime in Ethiopia so uncomfortable they secured the services of\u00a0a lobbying firm\u00a0to fight the resolution at the rate of\u00a0$150,000 dollars<\/a>\u00a0a month. The firm’s\u00a0recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0shows its lobbyists held \u201cmeetings with members of Congress, their staffs, and executive branch officials to broaden government outreach\u201d on behalf of the Ethiopian regime.<\/p>\n H.Res. 128, introduced in February 2017,\u00a0aims to \u201csupport respect for human rights and encourage inclusive governance in Ethiopia.\u201d A floor vote on the resolution\u00a0scheduled<\/a>\u00a0for October 2, 2017 was deferred because the Ethiopian regime \u201cthreatened\u00a0retaliation<\/a>\u00a0against the United States should it be passed.\u201d<\/p>\n H.Res. 128 was a David vs. Goliath match-up between an informally organized small grassroots army of committed Ethiopian immigrant human rights advocates, activists and their champions in Congress and big money lobbying.<\/p>\n In February 2018,\u00a0Reps. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) and\u00a0Mike Coffman<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Colo.) issued a showdown\u00a0ultimatum<\/a>\u00a0to put the bill to a floor vote unless the Ethiopian regime allowed \u201cindependent UN teams access\u201d to investigate human rights abuses. Coffman reported he had a \u201clot of meetings with Ethiopian government\u201d officials and they were \u201cmost opposed<\/a>\u00a0about having UN rapporteurs investigate\u201d abuses.<\/p>\n Since 2007, the Ethiopian regime has\u00a0denied<\/a>\u00a0entry to all UN special rapporteurs.<\/p>\n On April 22, 2018, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra\u2019ad Al Hussein visited Ethiopia\u00a0at the\u00a0invitation<\/a>\u00a0of the regime. On April 26, a jointMemorandum<\/a>\u00a0was signed to \u201cstrengthen the Regional UN Human Rights Office for East Africa to do human rights work in (Ethiopia) and the region.\u201d<\/p>\n H.Res.128 is only the latest attempt in Congress to improve human rights in Ethiopia. The long time global human rights stalwart Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) introduced\u00a0HR 5680<\/a>\u00a0following the May 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary election in which\u00a0hundreds<\/a>\u00a0of unarmed protesters were killed or wounded by security forces.<\/p>\n In April 2007,\u00a0HR 2003<\/a>, essentially a duplicate of HR 5680, was introduced by the late Representative Donald Payne (R-N.J.) and passed in October 2007, only to die in the\u00a0Senate<\/a>\u00a0supposedly due to a\u00a0hold<\/a>\u00a0by Sen.\u00a0James Inhofe<\/a>\u00a0(R-Okla.). Inhofe recently\u00a0urged<\/a>\u00a0the House to \u201creject the strongly worded resolution\u201d.<\/p>\n Coffman not only led the battle on the hill to get H.Res.128 to a floor vote but also \u00a0negotiated with the Ethiopian regime and arranged\u00a0negotiations<\/a>with the House majority leader\u2019s office to persuade the Ethiopian government to allow \u201can independent examination of the state of human rights in Ethiopia.\u201d<\/p>\n Coffman, whose district has a sizeable Ethiopian immigrant population, became their warrior on the hill. He identified with their cause and passionately and resolutely articulated their concerns and demands. He said failing to pass the resolution would send a wrong\u00a0message<\/a>\u00a0to the \u201cEthiopian government that those Ethiopians in the United States have no power \u2026 they have no influence on the American government\u201d and embolden the regime to \u201cjust continue what (they are) doing.\u201d<\/p>\n In his floor\u00a0speech<\/a>,\u00a0Coffman argued:<\/p>\n \u201cThe (Ethiopian) government has so often used the weapons that we have provided them not to fight terrorism but to terrorize their own people.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Ethiopians managed a smart grassroots campaign.\u00a0They effectively educated their members of Congress and staffers about human rights abuses in Ethiopia as it affected \u00a0them personally. They invested time with their representative and made him part of their community. Coffman worked with the Ethiopians for over three years and gradually became\u00a0acrusader<\/a>\u00a0for Ethiopian human rights. Smith called him \u201can\u00a0outstanding<\/a>leader on Ethiopian human rights\u201d.<\/p>\n As Coffman got to know his immigrant constituents better, he\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0them \u201cpart of the fabric of our community in my congressional district.\u201d He spent \u201cweekends going to the Orthodox Church, the evangelical church and the Mosque\u201d of Ethiopians in his district.<\/p>\n Coffman kept faith with his immigrant constituents as they did with him. He refused to submit to subtle\u00a0pressures<\/a>\u00a0of colleagues.<\/p>\n The Ethiopian grassroots activists understood a clenched fist is far more powerful that five fingers on an open palm and dissolved their ethnic differences and advocated in solidarity to improve human rights for all Ethiopians. They also partnered with international human rights organizations and other Ethiopian activists throughout the U.S. They worked fast and furiously to line up the 116\u00a0cosponsors<\/a>\u00a0to ensure passage of H.Res.128.<\/p>\n Other African immigrant groups interested in congressional advocacy to improve human rights in their home countries may draw a few lessons from the grassroots efforts of the Ethiopian immigrant human rights advocates and activists:\u00a0Reach out to their members of Congress; they don\u2019t bite. Educate their representatives and their staff with personalized accounts of human rights abuses. Keep their eyes fixed on the human rights prize. That means speak in one voice, present a unified front and avoid enervating ethnic politics in congressional advocacy. Partner with international human rights organizations because they are powerful force multipliers. Use social media to mobilize broader support among Americans.<\/p>\n When the chips are down, grassroots underdogs holding the right cards can sometimes outplay the top dogs on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Alemayehu (Al)\u00a0Mariam<\/a>\u00a0is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, with research interests in African law and human rights. He is a constitutional lawyer and senior editor of theInternational Journal of Ethiopian Studies<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An old Ethiopian aphorism propounds, \u201cIf spiders could gather up their silk in a single twine, they could tie up a lion.\u201d In other words, many weak and powerless people could band together and defeat a mighty adversary. Marian Wright Edelman,\u00a0founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund,\u00a0said: \u201cYou just need to be a flea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":219649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Ethiopian-protest-in-Washington-DC.png?fit=931%2C494&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-V8I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219650,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219648\/revisions\/219650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}