Confronting past gross human rights violations in Ethiopia: Taking stock of the Reconciliation Commission

• Date: 04 March 2021
• Published date: 04 March 2021
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/SACJ/v33/i3a3
• Pages: 562-578
• Author: Tessema, MT.
• Citation: (2020) 33 SACJ 562

Confronting past gross human

rights violations in Ethiopia:

Taking stock of the Reconciliation

Commission

MARSHET T TESSEMA* AND MARKOS DEBEBE BELAY**

ABSTRACT

It is a trite fact that in t he recent past decades, Ethiopia h as been under a

one-party d ictatorship. The rul ing political par ty encountered protracte d

civil protest and at time s, an armed struggle. Thi s has led to the overthrow of

former party leader s and the dictatorship. The protracted protest ag ainst the

party has led to ch ange from within the ruling par ty. Thus, with the com ing

to power of Prime Minis ter Abiy Ahmed, the re has been a widespread

change in the political a nd legal landscape. Ethiopia ha s adopted various

mechanisms includi ng establishing a reconcil iation commission as a mea ns

to reckon with legacies of a repressive past.

This art icle takes stock of the major problematic are as of the Ethiopian

Reconciliation C ommission est ablishment law, Proclam ation 1102/2018,

with the aim to propose mea sures to be taken to recti fy its blind spots.

1 Background: The need for comprehensive transitional

justice mechanisms in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s history is rife with turbulent periods, contested egregious

human rights violations and unaddressed ( historical) injustices,

grievances and questions. To be specic, over the last two decades, the

governing coalition, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front

(EPRDF), has been accused of perpetrating widespread and systematic

human rights violations. Although the government categorically denied

these atrocity crimes perpetrated against Et hiopians by its apparatus,

several human rights observer groups such as t he Human Rights Watch,1

* LL B LLM PhD; Assis tant Professor of Law, Hawassa Univer sity, Ethiopia.

** LLB LLM.

1 The Human Rights Watch, avai lable at https://www.hrw.org/africa/ethiopia, accessed

on 30 September 202 0.

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(2020) 33 SACJ 562

© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd

the Freedom House,2 Ar ticle 19,3 Committee to Protect Journalists,4 and

Amnest y International,5 have documented the horrendous acts.

Following Abiy’s ascendance to the premiership in April 2018, his

administration has not only been making radical changes such as

opening up the political space, releasing political prisoners, lifting

terrorist labelling speci cally for political organisations such as Ginbot

7, Oromo Liberation Front and Ogaden National Liberation Front

as well as legal and institutional reforms, but also openly accepted

the commission of widespread gross human r ights violations and

apologised for the wrongs done. In particular, while responding to

a question raised by a parliamentarian, Prime Minister Abiy, stated

that ‘our constitution doesn’t allow it, but we have been torturing,

causing bodily damage and even putting in mates in dark prison cells,

these were terrorist acts comm itted by us, and using force just to stay

in power is a terrorist act too.’6 Moreover, the state-owned Broadcast

Corporation, EBC, which for long served as the propaganda machine

of the government, recently aired a documentar y entitled ‘Ye tih

Sekoka’ (loosely translated as ‘Agony of Justice’) that depicts horrifying

atrocities comm itted on political prisoners.7

As documented by numerous sources, the egregious human r ights

violations perpetrated agains t Ethiopians range from killings, summar y

executions, enforced disappearances, rape, tort ure, displacement to

arbitrary ar rest. These horrendous acts are prototypes of cri mes against

humanity. Generally, in Ethiopia, albeit the degree and authenticity of

the allegations not yet properly and sufciently uneart hed, there were

gross human rights violations by the government; and historical unjust

relationships and grievances amid dif ferent groups. The controversy,

if any, these days, is about the nature of the violations, the extent or

scale of the violations, the identity of the victi ms and whereabouts of

them, the identity of the perpetrators and how to come to terms with

such atrocities and repressive pasts.

2 The Freedom House, available at https://freedomhouse.org/country/ethiopia/

freedom-net/2019, accessed on 30 September 202 0.

3 Article 19, available at https://www.article19.org/region/ethiopia/, accessed on

30September 202 0.

4 Committee to Protect Jour nalists, avai lable at https://cpj.org/africa/ethiopia/,

accessed on 30 Septemb er 2020.

5 Amnesty Internat ional ‘Ethiopia: 25 years o f human rights violat ions’, available

at https://www.amnesty.org/ en/documents/afr25/4178/2016/en/, accessed on

30September 202 0.

6 See, ‘PM Dr Abiy speech in parliame nt’, (in Amharic), 18 June 2018, available at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJnC2aX4jP8, accessed on 30 Septembe r 2020.

7 See ‘Ethiopia: Yefeteh Sekoka’ (in Amharic), 11 December 2018, available at h ttp s://

www.youtube.com/ watch?v=kgnLTwoOpmw, accessed on 30 Septemb er 2020.

Confronting past gross human rights violations in Ethiopia:

Taking stock of the Reconciliation Commission 563

https://doi.org/10.47348/SACJ/v33/i3a3

© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd