Zagol contra Levin
Professor Donald Levin is back with his tiresome "shimagle" views - views that were, I suspect, shaped and influenced by his recent visit to Ethiopia. When the professor was in the country in January, he was usually surrounded by Amare Aregawi, Editor of The Reporter, Constantinos Berhe, brother-in-law of foreign Minster Siyoum Mesfin and Tamrat W.Giyorgis of Fortune. Tamrat escorted the professor to Kaliti when he met the prisoners. We all know the views of these three individuals. Yet it wasn't expected that the writer of "Wax and Gold" would be swayed by the opinion of a few ferenj chasing people.
Let me state the reasons for my suspicion that Donald Levin was influenced by these people.
- On the last article he wrote
On the other hand, to the detriment of that process, some winning opposition candidates cut their participation short. They refused to take the seats in Parliament to which they had been duly elected, despite the unanimous judgment of two public meetings in July with the most educated and mature elements in their constituency that they should do so.
If you followed the August-November editions of the reporter, you would see this same line of argument adumbrated almost in identical wordings. That the "educated and mature" Ethiopians asked the CUD to join parliament was a myth Amare tried to entrench in the minds of foreigners subtly.
In the two discussions that the professor mentioned, less than 40 people participated. Not all of them were that educated or supporters of CUD unlike the professor's unsubstantiated assertion. The case in point was Amare himself. He was neither a supporter of the CUD nor a well-educated individual. He was invited to the first meeting as he owned one of the influential newspapers in the country. There were people like Haile G.silassie and Fitawrari Amede in the first meeting. Invitations were extended to them as prominent personalities. Educated? CUD supporters? Who said...
The second meeting was attended by six private press journalists and some civil society members. The judgment of both sets of participants was, of course, different from the judgment thousands of Addis Ababa residents expressed in the meetings a week later. Here comes another myth.
Amare and co. tell to every ferenj who arrives in Ethiopia that these meetings were exclusively attended by unemployed youth. Fortunately, I was in one of them. With me were my engineer, economist and uni. lecturer friends. There were a lot of people; young and old, unemployed and rich, educated and uneducated. It was a reflection of the composition of the population. These were real supporters of CUD. Most of the participant's message was clear. NO PARLIAMENT! When EPRDF saw the outcomes of four meetings, it banned further meetings. In the meantime, Amare and co. sharpened up their "unemployed youth are leading CUD" propaganda. Constantinos Berhe was also parroting the same views at the office bar of Sheraton Addis.
If Donald Levin really wanted to know the views of the CUD constituency, he would have talked with ordinary guys; bankers, lawyers, unemployed youth, the elderly...
- Another quote
To be sure, some members of the European Observers Election group erred by rushing to judgment prematurely and otherwise acting in an unprofessional way, committing violations of their code of conduct which officers of the EU subsequently acknowledged. Those actions had significant adverse consequences for the aftermath of the election, for which I believe Ethiopian citizens have had to pay an enormous price.
This seems another copy of one of the editorials of The Reporter. ( See Reporter's editorial "Observing the Observers") And it is a white lie. Ana Gomez's preliminary report on the elections came out in mid august. That was three and half months after the voters cast their votes and two weeks after the election board announced the result of the election. If that is a rush, how will the good professor view Mr. Carter's "free and fair election" verdict made even before the ballots were opened.
-On the Nov. protests
They called for protest actions in November that led to the deaths of several civilians and policemen.
Another classic tactic of Amare Aregawi: projecting EPRDF's crime on CUD. In his editorials and other articles, he consistently argued that it wasn't the killer but CUD that should be blamed for the death of civilian protestors. It is a tactic designed to confuse people on two points.
Although Kinijit didn't call for street demonstrations, the assertion tacitly deceives people into believing that it has called for demonstrations.
Although the protestors were unarmed, the assertion deceives people into believing that the government shouldn't be blamed for the killings.
Conclusion:
While he was in Addis Ababa, Donald Levin tried to broker an agreement between the prisoners and Meles. He even went to the extent of telling some people that Meles was ready to release them. He was later forced to eat his words. Trusting and counting on Meles Zenawi is a risky venture. He's yet to learn from his mistakes.
Now with his half-truths and misguided arguments, he is losing the confidence of many Ethiopians.