ETHIOPIA: Democratic reform a new phenomenon, says think-tank

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ADDIS ABABA, 17 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - Democratic reform is a new phenomenon in Ethiopia, despite a history stretching back over 3,000 years, and has been largely driven by local pressure rather than by the international community, a new report says.

Recent reforms had consisted of the replacement of imperial rule, then the emergence of opposition political parties and a private press that is just over a decade old, the independent Ethiopian think-tank, the Forum for Social Studies (FSS), said in a report entitled "Democratic Assistance to Post-Conflict Ethiopia".

It said Ethiopia "had little to thank international donors for on the long road to democratic reform", noting that aid and support for the country had been largely in the form of emergency relief, with "little focused on improving rights".

The Donors' Advisory Group (DAP), a forum where donors meet to address issues in Ethiopia and is co-chaired by the World Bank and UN Development Programme, declined to comment on the report. But a source close to the group told IRIN that the international community "plays and continues to play" a key role in Ethiopia's democratisation process.

Not only had the DAP funded areas like human rights and electoral reform, but international election observers had played a role in the 2000 election, the source said. He stressed that the criticism by the FSS was "harsh" given that the organisation was "one of many civil society groups" supported by the international community.

The FSS report, the first to monitor the effectiveness of international support for democratisation in Ethiopia, said donor interests had often overridden concerns for human rights abuses, thereby "inspiring little confidence". The donors had also on some occasions "bowed" to government pressure.

"Donor assistance to the democratisation process in Ethiopia has been comparatively limited," the authors of the report, Desalegn Rahmato and Meheret Ayenew, said. "The impact of international assistance on the democratisation process in this country has been very limited in terms of enduring results," they added, noting that foreign aid to Ethiopia had totalled US $1.6 billion in 2003.

According to the report, despite steps having been taken towards improving human rights, abuses persisted. "Other donors have not taken any determined measures to hold the government accountable on cases of serious human rights violations," it said. "A few donors have made some efforts to convey their concerns to the government, but none have shown any willingness to take a public stand on abuses carried out by the security forces."

It added: "As a general rule, donors have acted individually, and on occasions their individual interests have overridden their stated commitments to human rights", noting that "the Ethiopian government is heavily dependent international donors".

The Addis Ababa-based organisation further argued that democratic debate largely took place between donors and government, while the public was mostly excluded. It warned that the current switch by donors to direct financial support for the government would serve to further exclude the public.

"It will in the long run undermine democratic change by making the government accountable to the donor community and not its own citizens," FSS said. It added that the limited funding available had largely taken the shape of support for the electoral process, improvements to the justice and court systems, and support for parliament and for a growing civil society and the media in the country.

The criticism comes as the country gears up for the 2005 national elections that, diplomats say, will be a litmus test for the ruling party on its commitment to democratic reform. In 2000, the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, won 90 percent of the vote.

Dr Merera Gudina, who heads the Oromo National Congress, has told IRIN that his organisation might boycott the 2005 election unless there is major electoral reform. Merera, a political affairs lecturer at Addis Ababa University, said voters in some regions did not have equal representation. He also questioned the independence of the electoral authorities.