January 4, 2009
Ethiopia’s Person of the Year: MP Bulcha Demeksa
– “Obsaan annan goromsaat dhuga”
For an outsider visiting this old country where the coffee bean originated, figuring out the era and the political environment in Ethiopia can sometimes be as easy as riding a minibus taxi in its capital city. Colored in blue-and-white, taxis are the most preferred means of public transportation in Addis Ababa (Finfinne). Often, they carry aboard up to 12 passengers through out this melting pot of the country that became the headquarters of the African Union (AU) since the days of Emperor Haile Selassie I. If a taxi’s radio is not tuned in to the usual Reggae or Amharic music, the Ethiopian parliament debates are blasted out loud once in a while. Despite a national election three years ago ended with 193 protesters gunned down and with calls of massive fraud by European observers, the taxi’s passengers still show much curiosity and interest in current political events, hence attentively listen. But their curiosity is sometimes interrupted, for many of them, by a voice in parliament speaking in Afaan Oromo about the long-standing worries and problems facing Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
The Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) Bulcha Demeksa would not have been legally allowed to speak Afaan Oromo in such a stage during the Emperor’s era, but the privilege is not always guaranteed even under the current Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) ruling party. In fact, Bulcha criticized the EPRDF government for forbidding his party to talk in Afaan Oromo in key times, like during the 2005 national election. The EPRDF responded by accusing Bulcha of “stirring public emotions” by speaking in Afaan Oromo. Yet MP Bulcha says he has much bigger aims since, according to him, Afaan Oromo should become one of the two official languages of Ethiopia. He advocates for a presidential system in Ethiopia and for a genuine ethnic federalism where only Oromos can control their own destiny, including having political autonomy, as Bulcha told Jimma Times’s defunct Yeroo newspaper. Though for now, Bulcha’s urgent worries in the latest parliament sessions appear to be the seemingly endless imprisonment and sometimes killing of Oromos in all corners of Oromia. These are Bulcha’s worries that Meles can, of course, quash in two seconds by his famous slogan “the jailed Oromos have connections to OLF” and worries that are even quicker – much quicker – forgotten by the Addis Ababa passengers in the taxi, who are now comfortable to hear the parliament lingo returned back to Amharic.
This has been the reality in the capital city for many years, a place where the largest ethnic Oromo group in the country is a minority group. Even though the passengers in the taxi know well enough about the EPRDF government in power, enough not to say a word about politics fearing EPRDF spies nearby, they still trust the EPRDF who spoke in Amharic about OLF, more than they trust the Oromo MP who complains of abuses in the rural. This might be the reason why many Oromo scholars claim that despite many Ethiopians in the urban opposing the successive dictatorships since Mengistu’s Derg era; they still have not given respect to the “question of nationalities.” Writing about the Ethiopian student movements during the last Emperor’s time, one Ethiopian scholar named Mekuria Bulcha said “the inability to acknowledge ethnic identities and grievances intrinsically undermined the capacity of the student movement to conduct a rational-critical democratic discourse.” Meaning: a person can be deeply and actively opposed to the consecutive dictatorships in the capital city but still remain out of touch with reality on the lasting solutions needed and on the grievances of ethnicities and nationalities inside Ethiopia.
Thus, an outsider can easily feel the ongoing political tension that is compounded by the varying ethno-political interests and the complex historical role of ethnicity in this deeply diverse society. The tragic stories and details of this political tension can be felt outside the taxis in the streets of Addis Ababa where hundreds were killed and wounded. But these are not the same tragic stories that Bulcha was talking about or that the international media has access to reach. For those stories, one has to travel far away from the lights of Addis Ababa to rural places, revealed during the short minutes in parliament that Bulcha Demeksa had a chance to speak. The rest is available if one dares to listen to his OFDM opposition party.
According to one political observer, Bulcha Demeksa’s OFDM party has virtually taken the role of a human rights organization as well as a journalist in a country where both of these jobs are considered daredevil professions. His party’s decision to organize a comprehensive list of Oromos imprisoned or killed by security forces in Ethiopia have become the new threats on the reputation of the government authorities who feel no pressure to stop harassing Ethiopians, except those “untouchable” MPs. Thus, families from east and west, from north and south of Oromia jam the phone lines of Bulcha Demeksa’s party offices to tell their stories and grievances. Most of these suffering Oromos describe relatives imprisoned or sometimes even killed on suspicion of links to the prohibited Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Depending on the week, Bulcha’s list of Oromos abused can reach well over a hundred and some families might even re-call again, to tell about a relative who was sitting next to them during the last phone call, but has disappeared since then.
One thing is however clear: all these families know very well that the OFDM on the other phone line has as little power as a catholic priest listening to confessions and pleas. The best they can hope for is that the OFDM officials will tell their stories to the outside world and, with any luck, some miracle happens. Despite OFDM’s limitation, for millions, it is better than nothing.
Most of the time, Ethiopia’s remaining local daredevil journalists quote the OFDM MP. For these local journalists, it is much safer to quote the “untouchable” MP than to quote what they hear and see in their own eyes firsthand. Otherwise, they might join the dozens of journalists imprisoned or exiled. Furthermore, what Bulcha’s OFDM has excelled at seems to be achieving internal political stability enough to be the choice of alternative voice for many international media outlets. Through out the year, it seemed like most international media articles about Ethiopia’s political crisis have his name stamped on them. Despite being allowed a small number of parliament seats, his OFDM has achieved much more for the average Ethiopian and has remained durable, as other opposition parties break apart or stay too busy with internal squabble. Democracy and Justice might not be the status quo in Ethiopia but, once in a while, Bulcha’s pleas also get relatively addressed by the government, enough to respond to the May Massacre of 400 Oromos in western Oromia-Gumuz boundaries.
When he is not busy with his OFDM party activities in Ethiopia or with his Awash International Bank (AIB), a rare private bank success story in Ethiopia’s poor financial sector, Bulcha is also seen campaigning in the Oromo Diaspora. OFDM and the Oromo Diaspora do not have much difference. They both speak one language, one ancestry and they come from the same experience and history, but differ on the destination they want to go. The OLF, a militant
and separatist Oromo nationalist organization that entertains an ideology of self-determination up to secession, has large support in most of this Diaspora. The OLF calls Ethiopia a colonial state illegally established and expanded by forces of Emperor Menelik II (mainly composed of ethnic Amhara-Tigray peoples) and their Shoan Oromo allies, led by Ras Gobana Dachi. Though, long before the Ethiopian state was officially expanded in the manner described by OLF, all of these ethnic groups have been gradually assimilating due to commercial interests and migrations. Yet according to Oromo scholars, forced assimilation by those in power obstructed the voluntary and natural assimilation seen in many parts of the multi-ethnic Africa – a continent whose people often governed themselves in small village arrangements and moved around freely without much boundary restrictions for thousands of years. A product of modern ideologies and the grievances of Oromo people, the OLF attracts wide support for its armed struggle for separation, similar in ideology to the Black separatist movements in America and Biafra secessionists in Nigeria. In contrast, other Oromo organizations like OFDM desire not only equality for Oromos inside the framework of a strong, democratic and united Ethiopian state, but they also seek to dominate it since they are the majority. According to them, the majority seceding from the minority does not seem sensible. Most of all, Bulcha stands firmly against an ideology of “violence to end violence” and opposes armed struggle. Experts supplement that poverty and illiteracy can often fuel a never-ending cycle of armed struggles in third world countries. Also the manner Bulcha opposes armed struggle is not only for the sake of peace in Ethiopia but also to reverse the culture of armed struggle and militancy in dissident that could haunt Oromia for ages, even if it secedes.
“I don’t believe you can take power by force…if you do, another force will take power from you and it will go on endlessly like that” he told loudly to OLF supporters in Minnesota, a place where tens of thousands of exiled Oromos call home.
Not many Oromos in the Diaspora were on his side that July day when Bulcha spoke loudly to the Minnesota crowd, but the various divisions inside OLF and the undefeated record of armed struggles gone terribly wrong in the horn of African history were on his side. Other Diaspora Oromos understood his role in this horror film in the horn of Africa but one OLF supporter said Bulcha needs a supporting cast, adding that even “Martin Luther King needed Malcom X.”
Bulcha’s solo effort in the US to reconcile the two different worlds is a work in progress. But that was not the only reason why he went to the United States.
His OFDM party can not wait too long since an unforeseen phenomenon is mounting in Ethiopia as his party members are being imprisoned left and right, including OFDM Secretary General Bekele Jirata. Even the now powerless Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) couldn’t keep its last remaining piece functional, with its Chairwoman Birtukan Mideksa sent back to jail. Like thousands of other Oromos jailed since OLF was established in 1973, the family man and activist Bekele Jirata was imprisoned on suspicion of links to the OLF. Nobody knows how many innocent Oromos have died on allegations of OLF linkage the last 35 years. It almost seems like more Oromos have been killed on suspicion of OLF links than the number of government forces killed by OLF army to liberate Oromos. All previous rulers have used OLF as a scapegoat to crackdown on peaceful dissident. Some Ethiopians say the current government is happy to inherit that scapegoat as well.
As the violence and abuses continue what keeps Bulcha motivated, determined and patient does not appear to be his faith on the Meles government to change itself or improve. Like he said, a group that takes power by force in this part of Africa is likely to remain by force as long as it can. In one interview, Bulcha said the international context – mainly the fate of dictatorships worldwide – will have an impact in Ethiopia to his favor. “We are 80 million people and our political catastrophe can hardly remain within our boundaries” he added. One way to take advantage of this international context is unity among Oromos and unity between the Ethiopian opposition groups, the MP says. And as the scholar Mekuria credited the misery of the Ethiopian state to its failure “to re-define its identity as a composite of the identities” of various ethno-linguistic groups, the country, in that sense, also remains a work in progress that desperately needs many Bulcha Demeksas – for perseverance, courage, steadfastness and leadership. “In order to move forward as a nation, we must heal the wounds… [But] looking only at the past would deter us from moving forward,” says Bulcha Demeksa, with an audacity of hope that can survive only by his time-tested patience, against all odds.
