Is the Ethiopian government using war as a cover to perpetuate its undemocratic rule?
Over the last 20 or so years, dictatorships around the globe have collapsed due to the predominantly nonviolent defiance of people. Examples are abounding from the former Soviet blocks to Asia to Africa. It did happen in Ethiopia too when in 1991 the EPRDF guerrilla forces finally overthrew the Mengistu regime. The sad fact, however, is that the collapse of dictatorships in these countries certainly has not erased all other problems in those societies: poverty, crime, bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, violations of basic human rights. In some instances, the downfall of these dictatorships has generally lifted much of the suffering of the people, and has opened the way for the rebuilding of these societies with greater political democracy, personal freedoms and liberties, and social justice. In other instances, these people find themselves in continued subjugation by the newly minted dictators camouflaging as democrats. Even if they appear as democrats, their actions bring about th
