When Human
Rights Watch becomes Human Rights Latch
24th May
2010
There are
self-righteous organizations in the world today that simply cannot stomach Ethiopia’s
breath-taking achievements in realizing a veritable democracy all on its own - any
colonial power being the conspicuous absentee.
One such organization, notorious for its unsubstantiated accusations and
vituperative criticisms of the Government of Ethiopia, is the so-called Human
Rights Watch.
After its latest fusillade
of criticisms against yesterday’s free, fair and democratic elections, however,
Human Rights Watch has now proven to be Human Rights Latch – closing the door
on the will of the peoples of Ethiopia. Yesterday’s transparent, free,
fair and democratic election has been given wide and more or less encouraging
coverage by international media outlets with on the spot reporting.
Yet, however, Human
Rights Latch has, instead, deemed it proper to bank on the words of perhaps
some disgruntled individuals with an axe to grind, and castigate Ethiopia in
advance of the announcement of the election results as well as prior to the
European Union’s Observer Mission’s issuing its interim report. This whimsical action by HRW does indeed lend
a new sense to the old adage “haste makes waste.” As the prompt and calibrated rebuttal by The
Office of the Government’s Spokesperson had put it succinctly, HRW’s tedious
accusations have a dual a purpose. On
the one hand, by pre-empting the announcement of results and EU’s interim
findings, HRW intends to provoke the electorate to reject the outcome of the
elections and take to the streets. On the
other hand it believes that a binge of street violence in Addis would make the
EPDRF so vulnerable that HRW and its likes would samba their way through to
success by arm locking the EPDRF government into accepting the implementation
in Ethiopia of the now discredited laissez-faire economy of liberalism.
This assumption by HRW
is not wrong, it is mistaken. The very
first knowledge that anyone gets by having a cursory glance at the annals of
EPDRF is the fact that refusing to kow-tow or to be frogmarched into accepting
the will of outside forces is something which is very much in EPDRF’s DNA. As we all await patiently for the peaceful
and orderly conclusion of the elections, the Government must continue to show
stiff resistance to outside interference, confident in the knowledge that
Ethiopia’s nations, nationalities and peoples are squarely behind it in this.