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The ground to say Meles Zenawi is a dictator.
Walelgne Mekonnen
Many countries today are in a state of rapid economic, political, and social change but basic human and political rights will continue to be denied to vast numbers of peoples. Perhaps in the face of such rapid fundamental changes, basic human and political rights will move in the opposite direction and experience new forms ofdictatorship, like, ambitious individuals, elected officials, and doctrinal political parties military cliques will repeatedly seek to impose their will.
In the modern political and constitutional legal theory, a dictatorship is a political regime under which the power of government is not limited by any law. But the main features of this types of dictatorships is that there is a concentration of political power in one power center, especially in one person, party, religious office, ethnic or in a small and cohesive elite group. Modern dictatorships rely on control of the economy, military, media, and culture.
The social, political, economic, and even religious institutions of the society should be outside of state control, but have been deliberately weakened, subordinated, or even replaced by new regimented institutions used by the state or ruling party to control the society. The people has often been turned into a mass of isolated individuals (atomised) unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other, or even to do much of anything at their own initiative.
Currently dictators have come to power or sustained power, through the so called “democratic†elections and know the art and science of making and breaking elections more than those who bring democratic values through long practice Continuous electoral victories for one party are an indication of a questionable regime because people naturally prefer changes and something unnatural. In the dictatorial set up, all elections are won by the single party of the dictator because of:
-Opposition political leadership is generally weakened and wiped out.
-The opposition and the people are incarcerated or manipulated to be weak, all dictators use all state resources for their political agenda and propaganda.
-All social and public institutions are generally run by group of people who associate closely(clique) of stooges or relations and
-Manipulation of any steps in jurisdiction and election is just simple.
All governmental and non-governmental institutions that support electoral integrity collapses, though there is a seemingly independent election authority who genuinely believes that elections are fair. Generally no institution is capable of setting aside an invented result of a flawed election due to multiple reasons; lack of proper legal structures, weak judicial systems and lack of integrity in electoral adjudication process. Unless a serious and detailed observation is done by internals and externals, it is difficult to understand the real reasons for the electoral success of a dictator.
With an established dictatorship, there is no effective opposition political party, active civil society working on the awareness creation and social development of basic human right and rule of low. Even social organizations with potential political influence, such as student groups, trade organizations, and unions, associations, were kept under tight surveillance of the dictator security forces or substituted by the loyal group.
After retaining their position through force or threat of forces, dictators and their followers; abolish or closely suppress the freedom of the press, speech, assembly, association, and sometimes movement. They set up an elaborate secret police system to detect and destroy oppositions and persons who object to their dictatorship and they persecute, kill or maim such into silence. The Press on the other hand can only thrive when people have confidence in its ability to reliably publish truthful, objective, fair and unbiased information for them without fear or favour.
Currently powerful images will dominate all media to present the dictator as the most pious, respected and courageous leader who was born to liberate the country against all possible internal and external evils. All, what the public hear from media is the personal achievements of the dictator, the party of the dictator, their family and their untested visions, missions and strategies. The state and party media became an effective supporter of a dictator and preach the peoples to believe that “unless this dictators are in power the country will not continue as a nationâ€, the dictator alone hold the truth and the people convinced that there is no point supporting the opposition. The TPLF media, for instance, is incessantly drumming into our ears that “we are a democratic country†and bellowing that “in a democratic country like Ethiopiaâ€, this or that should not happen. It thus, seems completely unaware of the cardinal fact that neither during military rule nor since TPLF has Ethiopia been a democratic country.
There is no freedom for the public to know the important and truth information about politics, economy, and human right conditions of the world and their own country. So media manipulation seals the public opinion. Powerful dictators, in particular, the elected dictators have much to hide because they fear adverse public opinion, their public appearance is not the actual character and the public opinion created by the dictatorial regime paints a saint picture so that the public never believe that the dictator is corrupt.
The entire state mechanism is structured for manipulating public opinion and make the Public to believe the dictator, because all avenues of dissenting views are either closed or controlled or using over mighty executive powers. Professionals, academics, business leaders, trade unionists, associations, historians and religious dignitaries are used by dictators to cover cult personalities of the dictators, parties, elites and their families.
Most dictators come to power with an overwhelming victory after exploiting culturally, socially, economically and politically sensitive issues(religious, ethnic…..etc). They generally create a common enemy, even if there is no such one, so that the public will be busy in thinking rather than scrutinizing the regime. In almost all dictatorial regimes, propaganda machinery will stress the need for the continuation of the present political leadership to secure the interest of the country against the internal and external interference. All those who challenge the dictators will run the risk of being called collaborators, mercenary, narrow minded, fascist or terrorist.
Dictators grab power and abuse power to commit robbery of public wealth with impunity but the public are made to believe otherwise. When the institutional set up is deliberately emasculated, the public believe it is only the dictator who can revitalize sanity and develop the country. Natural resources and most profitable industries and businesses are always exploited by few individuals in the regime. Economy (extractive industries, defence expenditure, investments and major infrastructural developments )and strategic institutions( regulatory institutions and law enforcement mechanism) are controlled by a single individual, a party, a family or cronies.
The majority People suffer from innumerable economic hardships but reports of the Ministry of Finance, Statistics Agency, Central Bank (or similar regulatory institution) will always show extreme growth and development. Unrealistic expenditure for fake development projects and waste of public finance for massive constructions and popular donations at public expenditure are common. Dictators form a group enterprise that has himself, family members and a strong and trusted individuals of the same party, ethnic, area of birth or opinion. Though there is no space to measure the wealth of the dictator, the family and trusted individuals while in power.
The modern dictatorship neither ends corruption nor discards the tool of having a favored minority. But the new system strengthens itself by making these things less visible and more “democratic.†A new ruling class is formed among leaders of the government, party, army, and mass organizations. Control of the national budget and economy allows them to shift money back and forth as they please, while domination of the media and judiciary eliminates the possibility of embarrassing exposé or legal punishment. Under the auspices of the state, a whole chain of vacation homes, special stores, foreign currency accounts, and services is provided for the elite’s benefit.
Unless they are thrown out of power, dictators will never been held accountable for their atrocities, corruption and abuses in their own country. They generally know that the international scene is different and risky; therefore they either openly clash with international actors or strike deals with powerful international figures.
To hide and covers all abuses they commit domestically, all dictators without exception say “our country is sovereign and do not interfere; we can manage our own affairsâ€. Some dictators whose countries have natural resources (such as oil, gas, diamond, gold, fertile land) make a corrupt deals at international level and create different comfort zones outside their country. These authoritarian rulers work together internationally to look after their own interests at all forums(they share intelligence, they put up a united opposition against the non-governmental movement and human rights defenders and reactions on international affairs are mostly similar).
With the development of the international criminal law and with the emerging trends on international anti-corruption legal regimes, there is a possibility of despotic dictators being held accountable for their atrocities outside their jurisdictions. Sometimes they fear human rights and see human rights as a western concept or some other nonsense, because they know that it is the human rights regime that holds them accountable one day internationally. What matters for them is the security for the regime and not the security of the people of the respective countries.
In the last 21 years Meles Zenawi and his family, TPLF, EPRDF, and small groups of TPLF commit psychological, cultural, social, economical, political and religious crimes on peoples and country. After all this shameless crime is happened, the people Ethiopia is concluded that only changing the regime can end a dictatorship, and start to fight by non-violently and/or violently. Non-violent struggle(protests, strikes, non-cooperation, boycotts, disaffection, and people power) is a much more complex and varied means of struggle than is violence. Under TPLF dictatorial regimes non violent struggle is not sufficient enough to bring change, instead only increased suppression, suffering and death, but currently us we have seen the Arab Spring, using all the available struggle strategy is fast, most effective and minimal causalities than full fledge war alone.
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