Get printer-friendly version

H. E. Mr. Colin L. Powell
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Mr. Secretary:

The Oromo Committee for Democracy (OCD) considers your Excellency's recent maiden four-states' African tour a grand paradigm shift and a refreshingly new frontier in dealing with the denial or retardation of democracy in Africa. OCD wishes to add that it is pleased with the Bush administration's emphatic engagement to helping Africa dislodge itself from the AIDS plague and corrupt authoritarian regimes such as Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.

Further, OCD enthusiastically supports your Excellency's call on Africans and their governments to create a democratic and prosperous continent in your speech to South Africa's university students. OCD also lauds your emphasis and assurance that the United States will stand by governments that hold free elections and create open markets in your other speech in Johannesburg. In this regard, our organization commends you for the candid conversation that you had with President arap Moi of Kenya.

Moreover, OCD welcomes the US commitment to the southern Sudanese people who have been brutalized for a number of years like the Oromo in Ethiopia. The Oromo constitute a good half of the entire Ethiopian population of approximately 65 million. Oromia, the home state of the Oromo within the current federal regime of Ethiopia, is not only the largest but also the richest region, holding together the backbone of the entire Ethiopian economy.

Your Excellency:

In the light of your African pronouncements on the matters of democracy and free market economy, we members of OCD would like to register our deepest concern once again against the tyrannical and authoritarian Meles Zenawi regime, which has made human rights violations its badge of notoriety. The plight and agony to which this regime is subjecting the Ethiopian people, particularly the Oromo elite, parallels the worst genocide in history. Many of our compatriots are today languishing in prison camps all over Ethiopia under the unjust and authoritarian rule of the EPRDF/TPLF regime. In raising our voice against this inhuman act and unbridled dictatorship, we request the assistance of the US government to use its good offices to encourage the emergence of a truly democratic constitutional and pluralistic government in Ethiopia.

OCD fully agrees with your Excellency's view that it is Africans themselves that will make the difference in getting rid of corrupt and undemocratic regimes as clearly pointed out in your Excellency's speech in South Africa. The Oromo people have been trying to do so for over the last nine years. They have been engaged to divest themselves from the inhuman Meles regime. However, they have been unable to do so by themselves since the regime, which has armed itself to the teeth, has denied a fair and free election. Because of the Oromo people's position, the atrocities that have been and are being committed by the EPRDF/TPLF against the Oromo have been boundlessly brutal.

In short, after ten years of iron-clad autocratic rule, the only uncontestable legacy of the EPRDF/TPLF remains to be violations of human rights, war, famine, disease, poverty, social unrest, conflict, and an all out misery and wretchedness. For these reasons, OCD is saddened to read President Bush's recent disappointing message of felicitations to Meles Zenawi in connection with the 10th anniversary of the demise of the communist regime in Ethiopia. We are particularly disturbed by the statement: "I am pleased that Ethiopia is at peace…" attributed to the president of the US. Ethiopia is not at all at peace. Recent riots in Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) in which over forty people lost their lives in the hand of the Ethiopian regime happened this month. Sporadic civil war is raging throughout the countryside. Civic associations are ruthlessly being stamped out. Most importantly, Meles' current communist recipe for Ethiopia's future, revolutionary democracy, euphemism for a one-party dictatorship, will not definitely "strengthen democratic institutions" in Ethiopia. Once again the regime is resurrecting its ugly Albanian-style communist ideological regimentation which it was practicing while it was fighting the Mengistu regime. Therefore, OCD would have liked to see the US government calling a spade a spade as your Excellency did recently in connection with your remarks regarding Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Your Excellency:

Given what is going on in Ethiopia today, especially the telltale unfolding sign of a "new" emerging one-man dictatorship, OCD can not simply see how the US Government can commit itself to working together with the current regime in Ethiopia by "strengthening bilateral relationship" as the President's message stated. It is our view that bilateral relationship can not be nurtured since the new programs that Meles and his hand-selected supporters are developing will greatly undermine democratic principles and free enterprise economic system. We believe that these kinds of programs are unacceptable to the American people. We further strongly believe that the US government should not be a party to the new undemocratic plans being developed to perpetuate a corrupt and politically bankrupt dictatorial regime in power where state power and party ownership of business are one and the same. In fact, diversion and misallocation of internal and external financial resources is already rampant.

We would also like to bring to your Excellency's attention that the Meles regime is on its way to reverse the very sketchy traces of democracy that have been ushered in the 1990s. The regime has already demonstrated the dangerously vital of aspects of one party rule by gravitating more towards despotic rule. This state of affairs was the essence of Dr. Beyene Petros' recent interview with the correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation in Ethiopia. A member of the opposition Coalition of Alternative Forces for Peace and Democracy in Ethiopia (CAFPDE), he stated: "What is in the constitution about democracy and what we see being put into practice are diametrically opposed. There is little scope for the opposition to have a voice." Without curbing the undemocratic activities of the current Ethiopian regime, we believe that fostering justice, peace, free speech, entrepreneurship, and basic human rights that the US and its Constitution stand for can not flourish in Ethiopia. The razzle-dazzle that Meles Zenawi has been orchestrating over the last ten years to cover his deceitful political practices must come to an end.

Mr. Secretary:

OCD requests that the government of the United States to use its traditional diplomatic overture to help democracy to flourish, free market economy to take root, civil society to develop, and peace to reign in the Horn of Africa. In this regard, OCD recommends that the US:

• Embargo the massive financial and economic support the EPRDF/TPLF regime is currently enjoying from the United States, the World Bank, and the IMF. However, not to punish poor innocent people in the country, all humanitarian assistance should be channeled through local and international NGOs.
• Pressure the Meles regime not to renege on democracy and free market economy through its implementation of its new revolutionary democracy by warning it categorically that the US policy articulated by Mr. Herman Cohen in 1991: "No democracy, no assistance" would be implemented
• Spearhead a roundtable initiative as soon as possible in collaboration with the UK, Germany, Canada, and Sweden to induce the ruling party to form a new political order with all major political parties in Ethiopia. We believe the US has the political will and the economic muscle to bring this about.
• Encourage political parties and civil societies at large that are committed towards forming pluralistic constitutional democracy and free market economy.

OCD believes that the US can truly help to bring about a major paradigm shift in the political and economic landscape of Ethiopia by using its diplomatic and financial clout on the current regime in Ethiopia in concert with its European allies. Without the intervention of the only super in the world, the Ethiopian regime will sink into a political quagmire day by day compounding the suffering of the Ethiopian people under Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship.

The Oromo Committee for Democracy wishes the new Republican Administration the very best of success in its endeavors in maintaining US prosperity, world peace, and the proliferation of democracy throughout the world.

OCD anxiously awaits your action and kind reply on the very serious issues raised in this letter.

Very sincerely yours

Oromo Committee for Democracy