Back to the principle and talking about the 70s when the question of nations and nationalities were top on the agenda of the Ethiopian Students movement both at home and abroad, I still remember when at the bi-weekly meeting or the annual Ethiopian students conferences we hardly had any problem with all the agenda items but as soon as we started dealing with the national question, believe me it was almost like a fist-fight. Although most of us who came from oppressed nationalities never supported those who were advocating, for example, the secession of Oromiya from Ethiopia because we firmly believed that national questions are democratic questions and therefore if democracy prevails in Ethiopia then the whole question disappears, non-oromo members of our student body found it very difficult to swallow the contents of the principle which accords the oppressed nations/nationalities the rights to self-determination. I could not understand them then and I don’t understand them now.

Most of our fellow student union members from Amhara nationality who could not swallow the sour truth that there was a domination of the Amhara system in the then Ethiopia and that such a domination of one ethnic group over the other should be abolished, were always accusing us of being narrow nationalists and so on. I don’t know where you belonged to in those days but I was with the group which strongly advocated for the right of the nations to self-determination including secession. I advocated this principle for two reasons: I am an oromo and the oppression of the amhara ruling system for me was not a theory but rather what I experienced in life from the day I started schooling. Lafa chitee dhukubaa goes the oromo saying! (only the victim feels the pain). The second reason is that I, like most of us in those days, not knowing much about human rights norms, strongly believed in Marxism – the only progressive ideology we thought would solve the problems of Ethiopia in general and of oppressed nationalities in particular. Today, I don’t know how large a dose of Marxism is left in my body but I still believe in the principle i.e. the rights of nations to self-determination. To make things worse for people like you, I became a human rights lawyer which strengthened my belief that all human beings have equal rights and no one should oppress the other no matter under what pretext and that the right of nations to self-determination is a human right, both at the individual and group level.

Obbo Andargachew, my worry is that however, if after all these years (assuming your are not a teenager) you still believe that there is no need to fight for the right of nations to self-determination, my arguments and facts in this article may not have any impact on you. You are not the first one I encountered on this subject but what always puzzles me is that a) it is only those of you who are of amhara dissent who have problems with this principle and b) you rarely come public to challenge proponents of the principle but always hide behind that certain obsession called Ethiopia’s unity. This time, however, you came out of your cage and wrote in public using norms of international human rights as a justification for your assertions. I don’t think you will succeed but let us see. You wanted to play hide and seek, although any non-amhara Ethiopian would have easily detected what you are up to. I believe this time you have got the guts to write against the rights of nations to self-determination because Qinijit is recording unexpected success in the nations election and hence, you may have felt that now you may be in the parliament and can change the constitution especially article 39 – the hidden target of your article, you did not care what people from the oppressed nationalities may feel about your assertion. Why should you?

Human Rights

Now that I told you who I am – both my ethnic origin and my profession, although I know very little about you except that from your name (Andargachew = unify them) I could see that your parents gave you a huge task and you rightly aspire to live up to your name. That being said, let me return to your article and see if I can convince you that your pseudo-theory about the hierarchy in human rights and the supremacy of individual right over the so called group right are totally incorrect, and that the rights of nations to self-determination is a human right which should be enjoyed by all is correct.

To begin with, Human Rights norms are not presented in a hierarchical way i.e. they are not designed in such a way that first you have to enjoy this set of right before you get that set. They are indivisible and that is why the motto of human rights advocates is “All Human Rights for All”. If they appear divided in to groups and categories it is only for practical purposes.

The principle that nations have the right to self-determination was not introduced by Stalin as you assert in your article. It does not matter who the author of this principle was, but what matters for sure is the relevance of the principle itself in contemporary global political settings. The principle was discussed at the preparatory process of the League of Nations and later at the United Nations from day one of its inception. It was actually meant to be part of the first ever United Nations Human Rights Document - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – 1948 (which was meant to be a Convention but because of the fierce resistance from the Eastern and the Arabic blocs it was reduced to a Declaration – a non-binding human rights instrument) but was not fully reflected in there. However in the two following Human Rights Instruments i.e. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which emerged in 1966, the Principle was clearly reflected and given an enormous importance to the extent that the principle of the rights of nations to self-determination is placed top of all the other rights. To give the principle an extreme importance, the international community decided that both Covenants bear exactly the same Article 1 which reads as follows: “All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic social and cultural development”. This is the fundamental human right which you categorised as a group right and subsequently told us that the human rights of an individual should be given priority over this right of a nation (people).

Hence the right of nations to self-determination is no more a communist jargon to attract people as you put it but a genuine effort by the international community to relieve people from oppression. Now it is declared a fundamental human right which should be respected by all states as stipulated in Article 1 of the above Covenant to which Ethiopia became a party in June 1993.

As you may see from Article 1 of the two Covenants above, your attempt to convince us that there is a hierarchy in Human rights i.e. first comes individual rights and only then we can talk about group rights does not really reflect the truth. I believe you are confused by the fact that in 1966 these international Covenants emerged as two separate human rights instruments. Yes you are right – they were separate. But the reason why they were presented as two separate human rights instruments had to do with the then global setting of ideologies and not with the hierarchy of human rights. Judging from the working papers which existed before 1966, it is clear that Eastern block states did not want to see all these rights in one Covenant. As Conventions in general and human rights Conventions in particular are meant to be free from controversy and avoid strong wordings so that they can be endorsed by the largest possible number of states members of the UN, it was agreed to divide this particular Convention in to two separate Covenants. In the end, a Convention, which was meant to be one human rights instrument was divided in to two separate and independent instruments and states were left to chose whichever they like. One thing they all agreed upon was that Article 1 of both instruments should read exactly the same as above, which is a clear manifestation of the commitment by States members of the United Nations, that the principle of the rights of nations to self-determination is extremely important.

I don’t think it is important to go into detail here but it worthwhile to note that the CCPR deals with individual rights and has at least 8 articles which cannot be derogated i.e. states should not make reservations at the time of becoming party to them. Norms of CCPR are designed in such a way that they can easily be implemented i.e. without big financial input so that States do not delay their implementations under the pretext of being poor in resources. To mention a few of the major points of this Convention they include are freedom from slavery, freedom from torture, the right to be treated equal before the law etc, all of which can be implemented simply by incorporating these articles into the national legislation. That does not cost too much. Norms of the CESCR on the other hand are touching upon of human rights which do require financial resources and largely depends on socio-economic development of a given state for their proper implementation. To mention some of them are “..the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work…” (Article 7); “the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance; (Article 10); “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family; (Article 11 (1)); “the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger; and, (Article 11(2) all of which more or less depend on the socio-economic development of the country. It is difficult to ensure for example that convicts in Ethiopia enjoy the same luxury in prison as the convicts in Sweden; or to accord free medical care for Ethiopian citizens the way it used to be done in Scandinavia; or to assign certain square meters per worker at St. George brewery in Addis equal to what is accorded to a worker at a Volvo company in Gothenburg as required by these international human rights instruments.

Email: Belew@yahoo.com

City: Africa

Balcha,

May I ask you to shorten this piece and post it again. I read it ones, but it has so much unnecessary anjagranja and anecdotes that do not inform your argument. Sarcasm is a sign of a third rated scholar. Let us read your substanc. Filter it out. And do not tell us that "States are not human rights" kind of 24th century enlightenment. Take us step by step.

Ankasa Doro aka
Yejib Tila aka
Mamo Qilo

Balcha - please shorten your entry. As many others, I don't have time to read'me all so I couldn't respond to your argument let alone to give you feedback.