HR 2003 violates Ethiopian constitution: Meles

By Andualem Sisay - Capital

03 December, 2007

HR 2003, the bill in the US Senate on Ethiopia formulated to with advancing human rights and democracy in the country, violates the Ethiopian Federal Constitution, said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

“As it is clearly indicated in our constitution, only this House has the mandate to ratify laws regarding Ethiopia,” said Meles, briefing Members of Parliament at the House of Peoples’ Representatives on Tuesday November 27, 2007. “HR 2003 is a mistake in terms of principle and for the two countries’ relationship.”

According to the Prime Minister, if the intention of HR 2003 is really to strengthen democracy in Ethiopia by replicating America’s experience of the past 200 years, the United States itself should have had implemented its recommendations in HR 2003.

While US democracy has never had an electoral board at all and elections have been carried out by the ruling party, asking Ethiopia through HR 2003 to include members of opposition parties on the Ethiopian Electoral Board shows that HR 2003 has no intention of using its suggestions to itself, according to Meles.

“Ethiopia is a nation of poor human beings not poor dogs,” said Meles, explaining the ‘wrong’ assumption of the two individuals at the US Congress who instigated HR 2003. It is wrong and totally unacceptable if these individuals considered Ethiopia ‘as a nation that accepts anything from the US (HR 2003) along with its wheat’.

After the Prime Minister strongly expressed his belief that HR 2003 will not be approved by the Senate and the President of the United States, he said: “This will not have a big impact on Ethiopia’s effort to fight poverty and continue its rapid economic growth”.

Recalling the fact that Ethiopia’s 11.8% economic growth of two years ago, when most donors cut two thirds of budgetary support to Ethiopia after the May 2005 elections, Meles indicated that the impact of HR 2003, if at all approved, will not stop the country from registering similar or higher percentage growth this year.

Commenting on the recently released Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) leaders who are currently pushing the United States to approve HR 2003, Meles said: “It is a shameful act that one could not expect from anyone elected by the people.”
“I, for the first time for a few moments, felt ashamed when I heard that these people requested another nation’s congress to pass a law on their own country; while the public empowered them with its vote to pass laws for them in this House,” said Meles.
Their act ‘reveals their ignorance’ of Ethiopia’s sovereignty and is the result of what Meles calls, ‘zero-sum politics’ of the released CUD leaders.

Speaking on the future of the CUD leaders in Ethiopian politics, Meles indicated that his government will still give them time, ‘until the 11th hour and 59th minute’, to allow them play constructive roles in the democratization process of Ethiopia.