Ethiopia through the Looking Glass of Failed States Diarist

When columns of highly armed Ethiopian soldiers descended into the city of Addis Ababa fleeing from the fast advancing EPRDF fighters in early 1991, many predicted that Addis Ababa and the country in general would vanish like a house of cards. Some had pointed to the experience of the neighbouring Mogadishu of Somalia where Siad Barre’s government was overthrown by a mighty wave of inter-clan fighting and anarchy. Addis Ababa residents, however, quietly received the fall of the Derg as an inevitable and an enormously reliving outcome of seventeen years of mayhem. The ones impregnable façade of the state dissipated in a blink of an eye. Ethiopia political itinerary from an era of a criminal state to a state whose continued survival and legitimacy is contingent on its ability to provide core social services is illuminating.

The 1990s have seen series of governments and state institutions collapsing in many countries particularly in Africa. Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan became show cases of protracted civil wars with worrying level of regional dimensions. The 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea had been the only conventional inter-state conflict. Unprepared to properly make sense of this new dynamic, pseudo-academic institutions and think tanks enthusiastically adopted failed state theory which they used to categorize states. The US based think tank, the Fund for Peace, started to produce an index of failed states in the Foreign Policy magazine. According to this fuzzy concept, all sorts of states have been included in the category of failed state. A nuclear power Pakistan is camped together with countries like Afghanistan and the DRC.

The concept of failed states does not have any relevance to the way in which states conduct their international relations. Neither does it affect their rights and obligations under international law.

Is Ethiopia a failed state? The Ethiopian government initiated a constitutional dispensation through the adoption of a new constitution in which a daring political engineering was envisaged. Many saw and accepted the new writings on the wall. These daring and yet highly contested constitutional provisions became the modus operandi of the state. Through them, the state itself was reconfigured and redefined. Subjects became citizens. New regional states were created and given significant powers. Nations, nationalities and peoples became beneficiaries of myriads of entitlements which were unthinkable decades ago. Young Ethiopians became able to speak and learn in their own languages. Eritreans won their independence, which also relived Ethiopia from a war that has wasted its youth and resources. Previously marginalized religious groups started enjoying their freedoms of religious practice without restrictions. Ethiopians started exercising greater freedom of speech than any time in their history. The state’s preoccupation translated into ensuring the provision of social services.

The pragmatic utility of Ethiopia’s federalism became profound. As its relation with citizens gets reconfigured, the legitimacy of the state is achieved. Social fragmentation and divides are bridged. Despite ongoing ups and downs in its implementations and the fact that individuals and few groups still exist who question the relevance of federalism, Ethiopia’s new forms of federal governance has indeed become an irreversible modicum of state-citizen interaction.

Conflicts have not disappeared from Ethiopia. Among pastoral and agro-pastoral areas, groups often contest, violently at times, over increasingly depleting resources. Political mismanagement and tense relationships resulted in a deadly crisis in Gambella regional state in 2003. Readiness of neighbouring countries such as Eritrea to arm and support ONLF largely contributed to the recent tension in Somali regional state. There are armed groups which from time to time attempt to settle scores with the government. But it will be one huge error to use this as an indictment of federalism in Ethiopia. These groups do not have an agenda which rally grass root support.

The human rights situation in the country is not rosy. Ethiopia is a country where its institutions and citizens have not fully internalised human rights values and norms. This state of affair meant that a lot has to be done if the ideals of civil and political freedoms are to be achieved. The government has instituted mechanisms for the promotion and protection of human rights. It is shameful that many including Ethiopians have joined a campaign of dehumanising and demonising members of Ethiopian armed forces. Such unjustified diatribe belies a deliberate choice not to notice what the Government has done to make the military accountable, professional and well-trained. One can simply read the decision of the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Decision on POWs to see how internationally renowned jurists evaluated the performance of the Ethiopian military during armed conflicts. The fact that human rights are violated, as they do in many other countries, does not make one country in which they occur a failed state.

In the past, for people particularly those in the rural areas, the state meant the taxman who occasionally arrives in the villages with his armed entourage. There were many areas where citizens even confused the state with NGOs operating in their locality. The Derg had undertaken what is now considered as a massive and highly successful attempt in enhancing the control of the state. This was achieved through the establishment and operationalization of associations. The significant problem with this massive state undertaking, however, was that these institutions have no other significant social function other than serving the state as a tool of oppression and recruitment ground for soldiers. Not only did they lack any social function, they were illegitimate. They were often run by individuals who were unconnected to the locals. Local institutions and forums under the new federal arrangements on the contrary are run and managed in a way that seeks the fullest implementation of the right of the people to self-determination.

The functional vitality of the state is clearly strengthened and become meaningful when one looks at how the state, both at the federal and regional level, has effectively reclaimed its role as an important focal point for the provision of social services. Currently, more than 90 percent of primary-school aged children go to school, a staggering achievement compared to what the figure has been a decade ago. The number of educational institutions including at the tertiary level has shown a phenomenal increase. Massive array of health providing centers and units are established in all corners of the world. Child mortality has shown a significant decrease. More women have now access to reproductive health services than ever. Private educational and health institutions have mushroomed. Roads are developed, bridges built and other massive infrastructural development programs undertaken.

These programs are undertaken based on clearly articulated national development programs. Ethiopia’s civil service program is one of the oldest and the most comprehensive reform program in the country. Government institutions both at the federal and local level are undertaking reform programs whose benefits are trickling slowly but surely. Development partners trust the capacity of the government to implement these programs. They see in Ethiopian government a serious, willing and able administration which can deliver its developmental promises.

Ethiopia is a poor country. This means that its government and institutions suffer from sever lack of resources. The countries also find it self in rough neighborhood where political and economic crisis in neighboring countries have a vivid spill over effect. It is a diverse and large country. But probably Ethiopia is one of the best governed of Africa’s poor, big states. The government and its institutions are the manifestation of the state itself whose efficacy and constitution survival can only be ensured through a continuing measurable economic progress. My take is that, the Government is just doing that.

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