The Ethiopian Teachers Association’s battle for survival

By Wondimu Mekonnen, former lecturer at Addis Ababa University

15 years ago Meles Zenawi’s came to power in Ethiopia. Since then his regime, while ignoring the desperate poverty and oppression of the Ethiopian people, has been busy dismantling Ethiopian trades unions and human rights organisations. Amid this general assault on democratic rights, the persecution of the Ethiopian Teachers (ETA) has been particularly sustained and brutal. The ETA’s battle for survival will go-down in the annals of world trade union movement as a heroic struggle.

In 1992, at its General Assembly, the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA) elected Dr.Taye Weldesemiate President, Mr Gemoraw Kassa General Secretary, and Mr Assefa Maru Deputy General Secretary among other executive leaders.

Initially Meles Zenawi’s the regime lead by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) the main group in the ruling party of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Force (EPRDF), did not believe that teachers were sufficiently united to withstand the attacks. By inviting teachers’ representatives from all corners of the country to elect its leadership, the regime thought that the Oromo region would send an Oromo, the Tigrai Region would send a Tigre, and the Amara region would send an Amara and so on. However, teachers sent representatives who would protect the interest of the profession regardless of their ethnicity.

The new officers along with other members set out to protect their profession from further abuses by the government.

The elected leaders pledged to improve the livings standard of the teachers, to reinstate academic freedom, to raise the educational standards, to uphold the UNESCO slogan of “education for all” and to establish democracy in the country. Sensing the danger the regime immediately moved to disband the leadership and reorganise the teachers union on ethnic basis hoping by this to set the teachers against each other; but the elected leaders resisted.

In March 1993, TPLF summarily dismissed 42 of the leading professors and lecturers from Addis Ababa University, thereby removing the entire ETA Executive Leadership of the AAU Branch, including Dr. Taye, the President of the ETA.

When the “restructuring” was resisted by teachers the government cloned its own version of “ETA” the same month and used it to file legal charges in April against the genuine teachers’ leadership – the government fearing that an outright ban might provoke objections from international aid of donors. The courts initially obliged and with the aid of the security forces the genuine ETA had its bank assets frozen, head office closed down, regional properties confiscated, and the leadership and prominent activists harassed, dismissed, arbitrarily imprisoned, disappeared and murdered.

Yet despite all this the ETA survived and to this day is the vanguard of Ethiopia’s teachers. A series of appeals up to the end of 1994 led the High Court to rule that the genuine ETA could not be liquidated by government fiat. So the government responded by replacing the judges with its own men, from Tigre region and had the rulings reversed.

In May 1996, Dr. Taye Woldesemiate, the President of ETA was arrested without a warrant and was taken away by the Maekelawi (Central Investigation Bureau). The charges against him were ridiculous. Besides "Conspiracy to overthrow the government", they included more absurd accusations such as: kidnapping Italian experts, throwing grenade at the United States Embassy and plotting to kidnap US aid workers.

Woldesemiate was sentenced to 15 years jail term and released after six years on appeal without compensation for the illegal detention. He is now in exile after being charged with treason and attempted genocide along the opposition leaders, journalists, human rights activists and some members of NGOs. One wonders who has been committing genocide all these years? The ones with guns or the ones persecuted for no reason?

A year after this arrest, the regime's murder squad gunned down Mr. Assefa Maru, the Deputy General Secretary of ETA in cold blood on his way to his office. This raised an outrage throughout the country and across the world. The murderers of Assefa Maru were showered with praises and promotions and awards for “bravery” while his wife Shewaye Gebeyehu, and children have survived the last 10 years on irregular handouts from ETA.

Other Executive members continued to face detention and torture. Mr. Shimelis Zewdie, the Acting General Secretary and Mr. Abate Angore, Deputy General Secretary were kept in a one room cell for a month with a tuberculosis patient. The former died shortly after his release after being deprived of his urgent medicines. Kebede Desta, the President of Retired Teachers Association, had his eyes gouged out for refusing to testify falsely against Dr Taye Woldesemiate. All over the country hundreds of other teachers, have sacrificed their lives for democracy and justice in Ethiopia.

In November 2003, the Federal High court finally delivered a clear cut verdict on the case against ETA. It ruled that the Ministry of Justice had acted illegally by registering a new ETA whilst the old ETA was in existence. It also ruled that the group claiming to be the leadership of the new ETA was not a legal entity and so could not have the right to sue or be sued. Finally, leadership of the authentic ETA was given the right to claim compensation for the damage the litigation caused it. That court ruling did not materialise.

The fake ETA leaders appealed to the Supreme Court which ordered the Federal High Court to reconsider its decision. On 30 March 2006 with a different set of judges – and in a climate of heightened repression after the May 2005 general election which the opposition won but which the regime ignored and blamed upon the teachers – ruled in favour of the surrogate ETA leadership.

But on a further appeal to the Supreme Court the latter ruled on 20 November last year that the ETA court case had to return to the Federal High court to properly be investigated the main issue of the disputes.

ETA believes that the unwavering international solidarity particularly from Education International, National Union of Teachers of Great Britain, Amnesty International and the ILO together with constant pressure of the international community has been crucial to the case still being alive, even if it is unrealistic to expect a positive result in the end.

Teachers have been regarded as the number one enemy of the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia. At this particular moment, the teachers and their Association are held responsible for the regime’s loss of the May 2005 election. As a result they have been victimised and systematically persecuted. Thousands had been fired from their teaching posts, leaving their families without any income. Sixty-eight teachers were arbitrarily imprisoned in November 2005 following the social unrest caused by the regime’s vote rigging.

In spite of all the harsh repression, ETA did not stop fighting for the rights of the teachers. It still holds meetings, seminars and struggles to combat AIDS, regardless of the regimes security men attempting to stop them from carrying their duties. With the support of Education International ETA will hold a conference during 7-10 February 2007 at Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa. In the process many Ethiopian teachers may be detained or even killed. Regardless of whatever action the regime may take ETA will go ahead with the plan, proving to the whole world that the ETA remains to this day a powerful vanguard of the Ethiopian teachers.

Postscript

In his email dated December 20, Gemoraw Kassa, ETA General Secretary, informed us that Ayalew, acting as chair of Awi zone ETA Executive, had been detained without warrant since December 14.

Ayalew has reportedly been tortured and denied medical treatment while in police custody. His relatives and colleagues in the ETA are now extremely worried as they have known neither his health condition nor his whereabouts since December 18.

Mengistu, member of ETA Advisory and Programme Organizer Committee for EFAIDS, and acting chair of East Gojam Zonal Executive, also disappeared on December 15. He had been under constant surveillance by government security agents for several days prior to his disappearance.

Both men, together with 68 ETA prominent activists, endured arbitrary detention in November 2005. Kassa considers them as being ‘at severe risk’.

EI deplores such police intervention and harassment of trade union leaders and members and urges the Ethiopian authorities to give information on the health conditions and the location of both men, and to release them or at the very least, to provide them with a fair trial process.

Last September EI and ETA filed a complaint to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association concerning violations of ILO Conventions 87 and 98.

EI will continue to support its member the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association, to monitor the situation, and to oppose such harassment and repeated violation of human and trade union rights.

Mon 08, January 2007 @ 00:48