United Movement for the Salvation of Ethiopia through Democracy
Launching an Effective Resistance against TPLF Tyranny – a tyranny which is the Real
Driver of Instability and Civil Strife in Ethiopia
Ethiopia is one of the oldest nation-states in the world. Both written and oral history and recent
archeological discoveries, despite regional rivalries, suggest the historical continuity of the
nation. It was a Monarchy until 1974. From 1974 to 1991 the country was declared to be
‘Peoples Democratic Republic’ by the military junta, Derg, and went through a traumatic
experience. Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), a guerrilla force from a minority ethnic
group that led the rebellion against the military junta and captured the institutions of the State,
has been in power for the past 24 years. The country is ruled as a one-party state under a façade
of multi-party system since 1991.
The state is characterized by an intensifying political repression, rampant economic corruption,
denial of basic human and political rights and repeated sham elections. The top brass of the
army and security organs of the state, including key diplomatic positions, are effectively monoethnic despite the claim of the regime to stand for the equality of all ethnic groups. The people
have completely lost confidence in the government after the regime shamelessly declared itself
to have won 100% of the parliamentary seats in the 2015 election. Ethiopians, with no other
choice available to them for democratic transition, have now risen up in arms. And this is a
credible threat of force to the regime. History has time and again proven that no government that
denies freedom, justice and democracy to its people will not survive their wrath.
Against this background, Ethiopian democratic forces, reflecting the broad diversity of the
Ethiopian society, have recently formed the United Movement for the Salvation of Ethiopia
through Democracy (UMSED) as an umbrella organization. UMSED is committed to coordinate
the people’s struggle for effective resistance against TPLF’s tyranny and to ensure the transition
to true democracy and stable political order in Ethiopia. No one relishes the idea of armed
conflict; but, there are times when armed self-defense becomes the only choice to resist the
unbearable violence by minority against majorities and to bring about an enduring peace and
stability in a society.
Ethiopians have given up on elections as they have become meaningless rituals: There have
been five national elections under the TPLF. The first election in 1995 resulted in 3 opposition
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members being elected to the parliament that has a total of 548 MPs. In the second election of
2000, the number for the opposition members rose to 27. In the 2005 general election, which
was monitored by the Carter Center, European Union and other observers, Ethiopians turned out
in record numbers and voted for the opposition, mainly CUD and UEDF. The results were
rigged; and the election was blatantly stolen. Furthermore, many unarmed and defenseless
peaceful protesters demanding the respect for the vote of the people were indiscriminately
gunned down in a broad daylight. Leaders of opposition political parties, civic societies,
journalists and dignified and well-meaning Ethiopian citizens were jailed for two years.
Members of the fact finding commission appointed by the government itself published the
evidence that the government has cold-bloodedly massacred 197 Ethiopians on this day of
infamy. Today, these fact finders are themselves in exile fleeing for their lives. Only one
opposition member was able to win a seat in the parliament during the 2010 fourth national
election. In the most recent election of May 2015, in which the regime claimed 100% landslide
victory of all parliamentary seats, no credible outside/international observers, excepting those
from the corrupt African Union, were allowed to monitor the election.
The Ethiopian government owns all land in the country, including most residential and
commercial real estate in towns and cities like all other communist totalitarian regimes in the
world. The industrial and service sector of the economy is also heavily controlled by Fund for
the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), an endowed conglomerate parastatal serving as a front
for the ruling TPLF party. Until recently it was managed by the wife of the late Prime Minister.
Both were members of the TPLF/EPRDF politbureau and the legislative assembly, making their
work similar to the work of the late Romanian dictators, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena
Ceaușescu. The total grip on land and the economy is a source of much power to the regime and
the accompanying oppression of the people in a country where eighty five percent of the
population is engaged in farming and most city dwellers rely on the government for employment
and housing. All land in the country was declared government property by the old communist
military regime and the current regime has continued the practice. The monopolization of land
by the TPLF and its surrogate administrators has been the source of wealth for some, but
continued to stifle the production of food as in the communist era. Thanks to this land policy,
today lives particularly that of children and cattle in the Afar, Amara, Gambella, Somali and
Southern regions of the country are perishing due to a single season rainfall failure.
Ethiopians are tired of their voices being totally muffled: Independent media is not tolerated.
The International Federation of Journalists has declared the regime to be one of the worst
offenders of press freedom. Television, Internet, and major print media is owned and operated
by the government. The state is the only Internet Service Provider and uses Chinese, Italian and
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British Internet hacking and intercepting technology vendors to spy, trap and intimidate its
critics and opponents. The regime also spends precious resources on signal jamming technology
to stop the free flow of information from the outside. Foreign based and independently operated
radio and TV broadcasts by the Ethiopian Diaspora are jammed on regular basis as are
broadcasts in Ethiopian languages by Voice of America and Deutsche Welle Radio.
Ethiopians can no longer tolerate an entrenched ethnic minority rule: The TPLF, the
dominant party in the coalition known as Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF), controls all aspects of life in the country, similar to apartheid South Africa, by
installing its ethnic rulers as heads of major institutions across the entire state apparatus.
Ethiopians and international observers including those who bend backwards to “apologize” for
the regime know very well that ethnic Tigrayans control the army, security services, telecoms ,
foreign affairs, and other nerve centers of the Ethiopian state machinery. The TPLF party pits
different ethnic and religious groups against one another simply to perpetuate its minority rule
and monopoly on resources. The regime has no respect for religious freedom. It has created
chaos in both the Ethiopia Orthodox Tewahido Church and the Muslim mosques by interfering
in the administration of their purely religious institutions through its political cadres. It has
similar surrogates in Pentecostal Churches. Religious leaders who resist this interference are
exiled (as the Orthodox Christian leaders) and imprisoned (as the Muslim community leaders).
Ethnic minority domination has become a source of stress on the harmony of the people that is
essential for peaceful coexistence in a diverse mutli-ethnic and multi-religious country like
Ethiopia.
Ethiopians have said enough to the regime’s oppression with impunity: In the last twenty
four years, the people have been appealing to the regime to respect the fundamental political and
civil liberties of the citizenry. Peaceful protests are disallowed. Countless petitions and protest
demonstrations that were held in the major capitals of the world have ended in deaf ears. The
response by the government has been more repression and more violence. Today there is no
independent media in the country due to the wide spread practice of jailing and forcing
publishers and reporters in to exile. Today there are no functioning independent political parties
due to the practice of systematic disruption of their normal day-to-day activities, jailing of
opposition leaders or forcing them out of their country. Currently, prisons are filled with
thousands of well-known political, civic organization and religious leaders as well as journalists
under trumped-up “terrorism” charges. Certain ethnic groups are targeted. These prisoners are
tortured to confess and to corroborate the charges against themselves and their colleagues. In
spite of this massive oppression, victims of the regime have no recourse to justice since the
judiciary is made subservient to the political manipulation of the ruling party.
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As presented above, Ethiopians are once again faced with a regime that is led by a group of
people who oppress them in multiple ways; deny them basic human rights and are hell-bent on
blocking the democratic process for self-rule. We are also aware that though the regime comes
from Tigrai, a thousands of Ethiopians that come from this ethnic group are victimized and have
already started armed insurrection well over one decade ago. The predicament the Ethiopian
people find themselves in currently is not unique. Under similar conditions, the founding fathers
of one of the earliest democracies in the world have said it best in the Declaration of
Independence by the Colonies from the Great Britain: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these
rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness’ A similar spirited paragraph is found in the
preamble of African National Congress’s Freedom Charter. These words ring true today for the
people of Ethiopia..
At this critical juncture, to facilitate the Ethiopian people’s struggle with able leadership, the
democratic forces in the country are coalescing under the newly formed UMSED as a “broad
church”.. It is not lost on the part of these democratic forces that one of the potential obstacles
on the road to the Ethiopian people’s struggle for freedom and democracy is the international
community’s multifaceted collaboration with the TPLF dominated government with seeming
indifference to the prevailing repressive political conditions in the country.
Following their new goal of making inroads into Africa, some countries have become major
financiers of the TPLF repressive regime. This may be an expected behavior from these
governments, given the nature of their systems. However, the West’s support for the rogue
dictatorial regime is inconsistent with the values of freedom, justice, and democracy the West
practices at home and espouses for the stable world order. The West led by the US has correctly
and understandably declared terrorism as the number one menace to global peace while in a
typical short-term calculus have also decided to consider dictatorial regimes like that of Ethiopia
to be “allies” in its anti-terrorism effort and the disorder in the Greater Horn of Africa region. As
a result, the West has made the Ethiopian regime a beneficiary of its substantial financial,
political, diplomatic and even military support indirectly emboldening it to continue with
impunity in its human rights abuse and repression of its own people. This policy on the part of
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the Western countries is not only short sighted and immoral but is more than likely to lead to
greater instability especially when minority regimes collapse.
It is obvious that the repressive nature of the regime and its extensive human rights abuses are
among the main causes of instability in the region. For all those who are willing to see the
writing on the wall, the regime is internally in continuous conflict with its citizens; it uses
scorch-earth military expeditions in the Ogaden region to the east and makes occasional
incursions into Kenyan territory pursuing armed resisters. The regime is also locked in constant
conflict with Eritrea in the north. This is the reason why the regime has one of the biggest
standing army in Sub-Saharan Africa thus spending large portion of the poor country’s budget
on the military while the danger of famine and lack of resources for basic needs of its population
is always lurking around.
While this is the true reason for the TPLF regime to build an army that is beyond the country’s
legitimate external security threat need, it cynically uses a fraction of this army in international
peace keeping missions in order to get acquiescence from the West for its nefarious repression at
home as well as use these missions as a source of hard currency income for its corrupt highest
military brass. Recently, the Ethiopian government is even seen scheming to leverage its
security cooperation with the West, hopefully in vain, for extending its repressive hand abroad
by invoking the legitimate rebellion and resistance of Ethiopians as a terrorist act. The truth is
that the Ethiopian people’s resistance is a very disciplined and well organized struggle that is
focused only on a political goal of making Ethiopia a democratic country either by forcing the
minority regime to come to table or removing it if it continues to persist on blocking
Ethiopians’ right for self-government. The people’s resistance movement is also very much
aware of its responsibilities for the Ethiopian people, the people of the region and the
international community. It is a resistance movement which is informed from the rich tradition
of Ethiopian history. It is not a group of bandits and terrorists. It includes several members of
the opposition who contested the ill-fated 2005 election. In deed it is a democratic force and
represents a cross section of Ethiopians.
In their long history of existence, Ethiopians have shown no affinity for internalizing any sort of
extremist ideology let alone to terrorist practice despite the persistent attempt to impose
communism during the military regime and ethno-centric politics by the current regime on them.
The history of Ethiopia is replete with building good relationship with its neighbors, peaceful
coexistence and social stability. Ethiopian history also shows the courage and willingness of the
people to lay their lives and honor to resist and prevail over colonialism and minority rule..
Witness the Ethiopian people’s glorious victory in the battle of Adwa and their resistance
against fascist Italy even when the world turned its face and gave them its cold shoulders.
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To stay true to our forefathers’ tradition saying no to oppression and its own commitment for
democracy, UMSED pledges to work hard and to pay the necessary sacrifice to put an end to the
tyranny of TPLF dominated regime and to assure that the TPLF regime becomes the last
dictatorship in Ethiopian history. The UMSED appeals to the peace loving people of the world
and the international community to stand in solidarity with the Ethiopian people; for it is only by
democratizing Ethiopia that a lasting stability can be achieved and the specter of terrorism can
be dealt with effectively in one of the most volatile regions of the world. Anything else will
further destabilize Ethiopia and turns the Horn of Africa into a hot bed of terrorism.
From the Foreign Relations Office of United Movement for the Salvation of Ethiopia through
Democracy (UMSED)
September 25, 2015
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