Ethiopia’s New and Old Order

Amen Teferi

06-23-16

The kernel of the developmental thinking of Ethiopia can be summarized as “however much enlightened and altruistic the foreign forces may be, the solution catered under any foreign domination or tutelage does not work.” True, it would be difficult and impossible for anyone to come-up with a sustainable solution for the unique and long-standing problems that have kept Ethiopia poor and destabilized.

Thus, Ethiopia sought and implemented internally motivated and self-designed solution for its intractable political and economic ills. It has now a practically proven federal arrangement that recognizes the group rights of the nation, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. This political arrangement has enormously helped Ethiopia to stabilize itself and to ensure progress.

This most suitable solution had facilitated peaceful solution for the manifold political, economic, cultural or religious problems that had been affecting Ethiopia for centuries.  For the last two decades, the Ethiopian Government is working to implement homegrown solution. We have witnessed that the federal arrangement has cemented the historical ties and mutual dependence of the people of Ethiopia and Ethiopia has delivered solution to its longstanding ailments. Now there is every reason to believe that the Ethiopian government is in good shape and it is fully alive to all its responsibilities and meet them with wisdom and generosity.

Ethiopia’s future would be brighter than ever as the rapid expansion of educational institutions would improve its human capacity that would be instrumental in its developmental effort. The progress achieved in this sector would give Ethiopia’s renaissance a solid foundation.

EPRDF was fully aware of the fact that the transition from bondage to emancipation is only possible through recognizing the individual and group rights of the nation, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. EPRDF is pragmatic, enlightened and forward-looking party that has not only made remarkable progress in further improving the historical ties of the people of Ethiopia, but Ethiopia’s relation with its neighbors.

In the past, most of the states in the region were undemocratic that have not truly representatives nature. Therefore, many of them contain within themselves the seed of political conflict that have been causes for both the intra and inter-state conflicts.

Hence, the regional policy of Ethiopia in the past could be characterized by regional destabilization.  Beggaring one’s neighbor is a finely nuanced developed political art of the Horn. This resulted in a very fragmented regional diplomatic landscape and weakened regional organization.

Although the Eritrean regime still sticks to this old tradition and tried to make the region unstable, there are trends that amply signify changing nature of the Horn. The chronically unstable and volatile security situation that characterizes the horn is gradually fading away.

Ethiopia’s contribution in this regard is immense. The foreign and national security policy of Ethiopia has changed not only its perception towards its neighbors, but also the perception of the neighboring countries towards Ethiopia. The current foreign and national security policy of Ethiopia is not a strategic document that is formulated by simply reiterating the past grandeur to feed hypocritical vanities that have been disorienting the past regimes.

The new policy has heralded the dawn of a new chapter that has redefined and changed the longstanding feature of the war ravage and volatile region of the horn. Thoroughly evaluating the strength and the weakness of the foreign policies of the past regimes the EPRDF has formulated a foreign policy based on guiding principles enshrined in the constitution. Hence, its foreign policy has realist -and not idealists- characteristics. Thuus, huge achievement has been made in the diplomatic arena in terms of establishing solid relationship with almost all our neighbors.

Ethiopia has played commendable and leading role in restoring peace between the two Sudanese states and among various factions fighting in Somalia. Ethiopia has also played a significant role in framing AU’s vision that chart the path for the coming fifty years. Our policy has enabled us to play positive role in sub-region and to forge strategic bilateral relationship with all our strategic partners.

The Ethiopian government has adopted a new and broader definition of national security that does not focus on a military defense or regime stability. The redefinition of the foreign and national security policy is amplified by its conviction that Ethiopia’s vulnerability has largely sprung from its internal situation rather than external.

The political will of the leadership to develop solutions to internal political conflict by adopting democratic system that recognizes our diversity and institutionalizing a good system of governance has encouraged participation and inclusion, rather than resistance and alienation.  

Ethiopia believes that its national security is strongly related with the proliferation democracy and development and had underlined that its success in this regard would contribute to peace of the Horn of Africa region. Based on this convictions Ethiopia has been working to create economic and political integration in the Horn.

The road links and power interconnections would have so many implications with deep economic, political, social, and security dimension that have national, bilateral, regional, sub-regional or continental magnitudes. The strong economic tie among countries in the horn would contribute to forge stable relationship and reduce tension among the neighboring countries of the Horn of Africa.

Moreover, the envisaged economic integration of the countries in the Horn would be instrumental in forging political bondage that would serve as a viable means to create regional security. Economic integration is a vehicle for political integration.

The regional integration scheme remained to be a hollow shell so long as the parties involved are apt to pursue their narrow national security interests that would undermine the regional interest, which is revealed by the absence of political consensus and strong economic bondage.

Compatible national interests of the countries in the horn would help them to reconcile the divergent policies and define the limits of appropriate mutual obligation. These in turn will provide the horn of Africa sub-region with subjective and objective conditions for regional cooperation and creation of strong regional organizations.

In fact, the situation in the horn of Africa poses a number of theoretical and practical challenges, which require alternative mechanisms for creating regional integration and durable security order. However, cooperation on solid, selected and or economic interests often provide much more tangible integrative ties than high-level politics. Now old antagonism seems to have receded with the positive steps taken by Ethiopia to build mutual confidence.

Ethiopia has managed to do this in a marvelous commendable fashion that could create a new attitude in its relationship with the neighboring countries. The curiously positive development that has emerged in the last two decades should be further harnessed very carefully.

For instance, Ethiopia has made a very important move in this regard by breaking some of the psycho – political hurdles surrounding the utilization of the Nile water. Ethiopian’s position in the utilization of this natural resource has created an asset that encourages and consolidates peace in the wider region.

The Ethiopian government believes that developing, adopting and implementing viable political and economic policy would dry out the quagmire of poverty that would in turn dampen conflicts that have national and regional magnitude. Ethiopia has boldly highlighted the link between democracy, development and conflict within and without. Hence, this policy has opened up a considerable room to address the causes of both internal and regional strife.