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Ethiopia in 2005: The Beginning of a Transition?
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Washington DC January 2006
Terrence Lyons
George Mason University
Ethiopia is undergoing a volatile process of transition
after a dizzying series of squandered opportunities and
bad-faith strategies by the major contending parties. The
May 2005 national elections offered a glimpse into what
a peaceful, multiparty, competitive, political future might
look like. But subsequent polarizing accusations,
intransigence, violent demonstrations, boycotts, and
criminalization of dissent recalled instead the upheavals
of earlier transitions in 1991–1992 and even 1974–1977.
The situation in January 2006 is both unstable and
dangerous.
Beyond conflicting characterizations of the elections and
assignments of blame, by November 2005, a dangerous
new context began to emerge. The main opposition
coalition had been shattered and its principal leaders
imprisoned; civil society leaders and the independent
press had been harassed and intimidated into silence; and
the incumbent regime found it necessary to use massive
levels of military force against civilians, and to arrest
thousands upon thousands of youths in neighborhood
sweeps to keep order in the capital’s streets. In
December, 131 opposition politicians (including 10
elected members of parliament), journalists, and civil
society leaders were charged with crimes that included
treason and even genocide. This tense standoff is most
likely to move into a situation of further retrenchment by
the incumbent regime and increased resort to violent
repression.
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