© In a piece considering the broader implications of the recent South African election for Africa at large, Mammo Muchie celebrates the calmness with which South Africans have consistently expressed their democratic and human rights. Encouraging other African parties to follow South African groups' example in ensuring political rivalries never descend into violent confrontation, Muchie salutes the country's ability to maintain a free and fair election process. Reflecting on the wider lessons for the African continent and his native Ethiopia in particular, the author stresses that the example of a free press and the right to criticise underpinning South Africa's success should be replicated across the continent.

“The elevation of an agricultural people to the condition of countries at once agricultural, manufacturing and commercial, can only be accompanied under the law of free trade, when the various nations engaged at the time of manufacturing industry shall be in the same degree of progress and civilization; when they shall place no obstacle in the way of the economical development of each other, and not impede their respective progress by war or adverse commercial legislation.” - Friedrich List, in the National System of Political Economy

People often say when Africans argue for an integrated national African economy, they are self-indulgent entertaining nothing but a futile illusion. They claim that to argue that Africa must unite economically, ‘knowledge-ically’, politically, and ’society-ically’ is to day-dream and to give in to fantasy. They assert that Africa does not exist in anything, form or shape other than as a geographical accident.

Of course, they would hardly say this of the USA, for example, where 'the tribes of the whole world’, and people have united under one constitution and national flag, and right now seemingly poised to electing an African –American with a father from Kenya! To claim more than a geographical reality to Africa is often condemned and reproached. The pursuit of African integration is said to be a too pie in the sky dream, fantasy, utopian, unrealistic, which distracts from taking realistic incremental actions. Thus, going for unity on a big scale is pronounced dangerous!

Politics in Ethiopia, region and in Africa has been, for the most part, destructive since the post-war period, writes Mammo Muchie. There is a need to find an alternative system, where conflict is managed through debate and conversation, rather than by lethal or non-lethal fighting.

‘Since anyone who criticises the entire systems of others has a duty to replace them with an alternative of his own, containing principles that provide a more felicitous support for the totality of effects to be explained, we shall extend our meditation further in order to fulfil this duty.’ – G. Vico, La Scienza Nuova in 1725, quoted in Reinert, E., 2007, How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, London: Constable and Robinson.

The success of traditional mediation emerges from rules of engagement that are not predicated on conceptual frameworks of punishment or reward, winning or losing, right or wrong, justice or injustice. Mediation must not free one party and censure the other, make one the ‘hero’ and the other the ‘saint’.

The main concept of traditional mediation is to bring the parties from a state of conflict into normal communication. It asks them to refrain from pursuing grievances through threats, legal action, courts, violence and imprisonments. It brings opposing parties to negotiate, accept the principle of dialogue and find workable settlements.

In some cases, mediation can be so successful that enemies turn into partners. But mostly it is a case of ‘antem tew, antem tew’, meaning ‘stop pushing your maximum demand on the case and settle for the average or the golden mean’.

In a country such as Ethiopia, where litigation is plentiful, poverty and deprivation encourage conflict, and there are insufficient judges and courts, nearly 90 per cent of disputes fall into the domain of traditional mediation. The creation of justice requires more than formal courts. The context of Ethiopia requires that traditional mediation remains critical to redress justice and conflict resolution.

There is thus a lot to be gained from our tried and tested methods of traditional mediation and to develop it by providing the resources to reach and expand the justice sphere in our society. In fact, this alternative method may be the most appropriate mechanism for dealing with the intractable difficulties that our country, region and continent have been suffering from the times of the colonial encounter.

Let us be bold enough to suggest traditional mediation as an alternative to war, violence, endless court wrangling, imitated legal ideas and discourses from Euro-American jurisprudence that may not work in the difficult contexts of our largely peasant societies and peoples.

Perhaps intractable problems that have defied solution, such as the chaos in Somalia, could be resolved, not by mounting an invasion to support despicable warlords, but by supporting traditional mediation amongst peoples.

The problems between Eritrea and Ethiopia cannot go on with each side using refugees as political opposition; but by engaging in mediation, including on the vital issue of why such an unjust settlement was reached in 1991 that denied Ethiopia its historic right of access to the sea.

Settling major political disputes through mediation The submission of the recently detained Ethiopian prisoners of conscience and the government to a traditional mediation process sends a positive signal: left to ourselves, we Ethiopians are capable of dealing with any problem, however intractable, by using local imagination, local arbitration tools and local ideas of fair-dealing and fair play. This is a generous way of reading the outcome.

Beyond the politics and propaganda of the government, the settlement between the prisoners and the government crystallised something new and original in the culture. Regardless of how the regime wishes to capitalise on the release of the prisoners, who were threatened by its courts with the death penalty and life sentences, we ask: does its action betray that it may have broken from fast-held and worn-out politics of ‘my way or the highway’?

The only way we can admit proof that the Meles [Zenawi] government is prepared to see traditional mediation as an alternative model of conflict resolution is if – and only if – they commit themselves beyond the contested episode of the prisoners of conscience. The government will only demonstrate acceptance of traditional mediation when it has conceptualised and committed itself to choosing traditional mediation as an alternative and critical method for broad and comprehensive national reconciliation and the resolution of all major conflicts. If they are not prepared to use traditional mediation with the other problems in the country and region, it is fair to conclude they have no commitment to the approach.

While it is an encouraging that the government might consider traditional mediation as an alternative to perpetual conflict, it is not easy to ascertain whether it is converted to this model for reasons of conviction or tactics. From the way it behaved before and after the release of the prisoners of conscience, the regime seems eager to capitalise on the fact that it had to play politics, using the carrot of pardon, after wilfully administering the stick of court punishment.

The prisoners of conscience never recognised the court or the charges against them. Thus entering into traditional mediation, of which some had openly advocated the value for a long time, has been natural to them.

As the government insisted all along that the case against the prisoners of conscience was a ’crime’ that only the courts can settle, its submission to traditional mediation is a real climb-down from such a public position. The government stuck to ’the political is the legal and criminal position’. But eventually it gave in to mediation. By its action, if not by its words, it bolstered the traditional mediation system of conflict resolution; in fact doing exactly the opposite of what the government seemed to want to achieve through the courts.

The acceptance in principle of a mediated model of conflict resolution represents a new flexibility, uncharacteristic of this regime for the last 16 years. We must recognise and encourage such flexibility, even from this regime.

Solving such major national conflicts through traditional mediation is a new phenomenon, regardless of the motivation and subsequent barrage of propaganda. For a regime stuck in a dogmatic time warp of the mindless position of the politics of ‘my way or the highway’, its latest stance must be acknowledged as new.

Judging by the pardon politics, by claiming it was giving total ‘pardon’ to those who confessed, after they admitted guilt by signing, it is hard to think that this regime has accepted the principle of traditional mediation. That it had to resort to such gimmick is deplorable.

Its stance does not however eclipse the significance and importance of the emergence of traditional mediation as a new domain. Traditional mediation has been ignored by elites, too often seduced by the trappings of Western legal notions that very often have not helped create sustainable resolutions to our intractable troubles. The fact that traditional mediation is being seen to produce results is significant for efforts to resolve complicated conflicts in Ethiopia, the region and Africa.

The partner group, headed by the Canadian ambassador, appears also to have facilitated traditional mediation efforts. If indeed traditional mediation is supported and resourced by citizens, opposition, government and partners, our country may move faster from pervasive conflict to secure development.

Broadening the domain for traditional mediation Now that the prisoners of conscience are released, and traditional mediation has played a significant role in the process, the prisoners, the mediators, and all who submitted to the process, including Ethiopia’s current government and the partner groups, especially Canada, deserve our acknowledgment.

But we must not stop at the first success, and must follow this with a further demand: to create a new alternative method for all the conflicts in our country, region and continent. The only way we can truly appreciate the significance of changing the method of conflict resolution to traditional mediation is when mediation is applied to all domains of intractable conflict based on a sustainable and consequential strategy.

The positive energy and spirit for the millennium requires that all the political prisoners detained from May 1991 be released. And everything must be done to open the opportunity for those who suffered to forgive those who disrupted their lives and killed their loved ones. If families refuse to forgive, it is understandable But government, political parties in opposition and traditional mediators must do all they can to encourage the concept that those who killed others may not handle being forgiven by those they hurt.

Launch the era of productive politics

Politics in our country, region and in Africa has been, for the most part, destructive since the post-war period. A number of productive moments have existed, but have not been sustainable. There is a need to find an alternative system, where conflict is managed through debate and conversation, rather than by lethal or non-lethal fighting. Fair dealing, fair play and the attenuation of grievance thresholds must be clear objectives to create a context where people feel secure to carry on normal lives. The fact that the regime, which has been so adamant in refusing any form of dealing with political opponents, conceded and accepted a mediation process is a break with the last 30 years. The question is whether this new engagement in mediation can be generalised to provide a framework for a national and regional reconciliation strategy from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

We should encourage this traditional model as a realistic alternative of creating a radically new political environment, no matter how intractable and difficult a conflict may be. Only then will it be possible for destructive politics to lead into a new era of productive politics. Traditional mediation empowers and accords agency to local stakeholders. It bolsters national self-confidence and creates learning and local competence. It is hugely beneficial in many respects. It requires our total commitment.

A fresh and empowering start We would like to see a generalised and comprehensive application of traditional mediation, and full political support for it inside and outside the country. We would like a full amnesty and the release of all political prisoners arrested since 1991, with the sole proviso that those who enjoy generalised amnesty must commit to carrying out politics without resorting to violence, and by agreeing to engage in debate and a political culture of reason and argument. Perhaps this will not be so difficult, provided the prisoners are fully informed, and their prior understanding is secured.

The acceptance and extension of traditional mediation as an alternative or integral part of comprehensive reconciliation from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean may be the most significant achievement of the millennium. All armed and non-armed political forces would voluntarily accept rules that silence the gun, and put forward programmes and arguments peacefully, getting the people to vote freely and choose the party they support.

We would like traditional mediation to be extended between the Ethiopian government and all its opponents from Eritrea to Oromia, Somalia. Inside the country, we would like to see all the multi-national and self-determined armed and non-armed parties enter into traditional mediation to create a favourable environment of tolerance, free debate and competition where only those voted for by the people can come to power.

What is needed is the courage to stop fearing the loss of comfort of the current position. There is no comfort in continuing destructive conflict. There is everything to gain by creating a peaceful environment. Conflict is productive only when it is pursued within legitimate rules that all have agreed to promote peaceful and civilised competition. Let us hope the coming millennium catapults the nation, the Horn of Africa and indeed wider Africa to climb the great wall of peace, stability, security and prosperity for the next 1000 years.

* Mammo Muchie is chair of the Scandinavian Chapter of the Network of Ethiopian Scholar. He writes on their behalf. He is a professor at the Center for Comparative Integration Studies, Department of History, International and Social Studies (CCIS) (http://www.ccis.aau.dk/) and director of the Research Center on Development and International Relations (DIR) (http://www.ihis.aau.dk/development/), both at the Aalborg University, Denmark.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Two years on, the winners of the 2005 Ethiopian elections remain in prison. Mammo Muchie challenges the international community to stop using double standards, and demands that it privileges and prioritises values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law over narrow national interests.

'All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.' - Albert Einstein

It is exactly two years since Ethiopia experienced one of the most open elections in its history. All of us who expected that finally our country would make it by seeing lawful, legitimate, citizen-anchored, citizen-choosing and citizen-voting change from one set of parties and persons to another, found ourselves in the unhappy situation where the usual mindset of those in power refused to concede to the citizenry.

Today, those who were elected are still in prison. Far from democracy fully blossoming in the veins, arteries and soul of this ancient nation, democracy itself is in prison. How else can we describe the difficulties of those who have done nothing but run for election in the drive to express their highest form of citizenship, other than to say we are bewildered. Continuing to imprison them is to continue to imprison democracy itself.

The space once open in Ethiopia in the pre-election phase undoubtedly created opportunities for some 25,000,000 Ethiopians to manifest a will to self-govern. One can understand that the fight, the debate, the commotion and excitement was unusually electrifying and vibrant. There is no doubt, also, that given the context of a free election, any reaction could spill into overreaction.

But nothing can justify the regime’s action to convert a vibrant political process, where the stakes were so high, into the overreaction and subsequent, if not wilful, killings by the security services into a legal wrangle against the popularly elected citizens, such as the engineer Hailu Shawl, Weizero Birtukan, Dr Berhanu, and all the others who are still unjustly in jail.

Changing the political process into a criminal legal process is hypocritical and unfair. The regime cannot prove that those in jail have any criminal intention. They never had. They never will. They had the noble intention of seeing their nation achieve what it has never achieved in its long history: to enter into an era of rule of law, where those in power submit to law, respect democratic freedoms, human rights and democratic political systems of governance.

Victims of double standards

A year ago in May 2006, there was a self-initiated momentum of world wide protest. Unity of the opposition, despite many attempts to disrupt it, was at the highest it had perhaps ever been. After May 2006, opposition groups started disagreeing, and the momentum slowed.

Now there is a need for the opposition to unite and agree in ensuring that those in jail are released long before the Ethiopian millennium. It will be a shame on all of us, above all on the Meles regime, to enter the next 1000 years with democrats in jail.

There are those who say that calling for the prisoners to be released is not the same thing as calling for the release of democracy - symbolically jailed along with their imprisonment. But there is no doubt it is the same thing. If there is anything that opposition forces unite on, it must be on the release of the prisoners, in order to release the incarcerated democracy of our country. It will be shameful for all of us not to recognise this dialectic, and call for the unconditional earliest possible release of those citizens, freely voted and chosen by Ethiopians who manifested a will to govern themselves through legitimate representatives.

It is also shameful for the drivers of world politics, who claim to stand for the values of freedom, human rights, the rule of law and democracy, to fete those who continue to jail a group of people whose record speaks a million for standing for the same values. Prof. Mesfin has stood for educating citizens, through ERCHO and other press outlets, for a very long time. There is absolutely no justification to put a man of his distinction in jail. For the world to remain silent and look the other way when such injustice is visited on an elderly man is indeed a failure of will, and a triumph of narrow interest.

Ever since the US policy thinkers have used the cold war paradigm to frame that country’s national security strategy by differentiating enemies and friends with the language of 'those who are not with us are against us', it has been possible for opportunist politicians to lure the US into serving its current strategic concerns.

On 20 September 2001, President Bush addressed the joint session of congress and the American people outlining the defining doctrine of the post-9/11 world: 'Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, you are with the terrorists' (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html). The problem with this formulation is that whoever claims to fight terrorism, whether that regime upholds democracy, human rights and rule of law or not, is open to be feted by the Bush administration. The doctrine, just as in the cold war days, opens up the opportunity for those who run into domestic trouble to entice the US government to back their misdeeds and look the other way.

The US government also opens itself to the legitimate charge that it is following a double standard. One of its standards is to uphold values of freedom and democracy; and the other standards are to pursue its interests. For the US government, especially the Bush administration, fusing the two and finding sustainable allies based on principles and values, have since become a huge problem. Ethiopia’s search for a democratic history has been influenced by the American administration's contradictory posture, inherent in the tension of the current post-9/11 doctrines. Our own election has suffered and our prisoners are still in jail for two main reasons: internal opposition division and not being able to unite around a minimum programme; and the international community' double standard.

A renewed call

Always in the middle of crisis lies opportunity. We call for the opposition to unite and redouble its efforts to get the prisoners released without delay.

Ethiopia has in front of it a millennium coming. It will be a shame to enter the millennium divided: the church is divided; the political parties are divided; communities are ethnically divided. There is alarming talk of a growing religious divide. Ethiopia may not avoid these divisive fissures, but it can not afford them. It is a challenge to all of us in Ethiopia and the region, from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, to make sure that we promote rule of law, democracy and human rights; and institutionalise democratic governance as a sure remedy to deal with the myriad conflicts and create a community of security and development, not only in Ethiopia but in the entire Horn of Africa region.

We call on the international community to stop using double standards, and demand that it privileges and prioritises values of democracy, human rights and rule of law over narrow national interests and narrow global projections, and to distinguish enemies from friends. We call on it to use every possible influence and the Ethiopian millennium to get the imprisoned democrats released and demand that they express outrage against the criminalisation of those who have been duly and freely elected as part of consistently upholding of the values they claim to hold dear.

If the unity of Ethiopians for democracy, human rights and rule of law, and the international community's respect of these same values over any narrow national and foreign policy concerns and interests, evade us, then Einstein is right: 'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe.'

The Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES) challenges us all to show the limitless capacity for human stupidity is not infinite. Act and unite to release the prisoners now!

* Mammo Muchie is a member of the Scandinavian chapter of the Network of Ethiopian Scholars.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org