EPRP Condemns EDU, 1977

In a previous post, we saw how the Derg government accused the EPRP of acting in concert with the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU). I thought it would be interesting to post a polemic from the EPRP side attacking the EDU. The EDU was formed by members of the Ethiopian aristocracy after the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. Led by Leul Ras Mengesha Seyoum — who is still alive, living largely in exile in the United States — the EDU fielded an army in the northwest of the country, receiving some assistance and sanctuary from neighboring Sudan. It also clashed with the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party’s EPRA in the 1970s, although Solomon Gebreselassie reports in his history of the EPRP that the post-Marxist-Leninist EPRA did collaborate with the EDU for a period in the 1980s. After the fall of the Derg to the TPLF in 1991, the EDU became part of the legal opposition. (The no longer socialist EPRP remains outlawed.)

The following article was published, unsigned, in Forward, newsletter of the pro-EPRP World Wide Federation of Ethiopian Students out of Madison, Wisconsin, in its February 1977 issue (Vol. 1 No. 4). I have retyped and reproduced it here in full, without edits or corrections. Note: by “social fascist” the authors of the article below are referring to the civilian leftists like Meison and Waz League who were still working within the Derg regime when this article was published. I won’t comment on the points made by this article except to note that it's also a pretty good example of the determined, if unfortunately often misplaced, optimism about the state of the revolutionary struggle at the precise moment when the Derg was preparing lethal blows against the EPRP. —ish

UNMASKING EDU’S “ANTI-FASCIST” AND THE JUNTA’S “ANTI-FEUDAL” COVERS

Various forces are at work in Ethiopia today to “liquidate” the New Democratic Revolution being led by the EPRP. The foremost enemies of the Ethiopian people are the fascist military clique and its revisionist intellectual bootlickers currently serving the direct interests of feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capitalism. The junta's active repression of the masses in general and democratic and revolutionary forces in particular has helped formerly disgraced and overthrown aristocratic and feudalist remnants to regroup in an attenpt to stage a come-back. One such organization is the self-styled “EDU” which operates from London.

Looking through their propaganda publications, the military junta and the EDU seem to be fundamentally opposed to one another. Like the thief crying stop thief, they hurl insults at one another in a vain attempt to hide their dirty schemes. Hence for the so-called EDU, the junta is “desecrating the Ethiopian character,” “too radical”, “anti-religion”, etc. Angry, it seems, by the stupidity of its class brothers for being feeble-minded enough to take it for its words, the junta occasionally calls them counter-revolutionaries, etc.

Beyond the level of appearance, however, the difference between the junta and the EDU is not one between two antagonistic classes, but a power struggle between ruling factions with tactical differences on how best to preserve the rule of feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capitalism in Ethiopia. The so-called EDU is composed of former notorious big landlords and aristocrats who lost the control of the state apparatus to the bureaucratic bourgeois wing of the ruling classes as now represented by the junta and the social-fascist clique at its service. Hence if in pre-February 1974 Ethiopia state power was under the control of the aristocracy at the head of whom was autocrat Haile Selassie, it is now under the control of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie at the head of whom is the fascist military junta headed by the CIA-roomed and extravagantly demagogic Mengistu Haile Mariam. In the former as in the latter, the state serves the direct interests of feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism, against which the New Democratic Revolution led by the EPRP is directed. And it is this revolution that both are working hard to counter.

Leul Ras Mengesha Seyoum, founder of the
royalist EDU, in a recent photo

A quick glance at the propaganda publications of the EDU indicates to us where their real difference with the military junta lies. Having in mind its age-old experience in intrigues and robbery, the EDU accuses the junta for not having the necessary experience in running the country, of lacking “management expertise”, etc. And as if the ruthless exploitation of workers and peasants under the junta is not evident enough, the EDU “accuses” the junta of encouraging “indiscipline, inefficiency and inattention in the factories and farms” and for not doing away with what they call the “time-wasting and indolent ways” of the masses (—referring of course to their way of life!). Of course, in order to baffle people they talk of their “concern” for the “democratic rights of the people” as if the Ethiopian people have not suffered enough under their dark rule for so long!

But for us as well as the downtrodden Ethiopian masses things must be clear. And they are. We are fighting under the leadership of the EPRP against the feudal, comprador and bureaucratic bourgeois classes who are tied to imperialism and who are our inseparable enemies.

Hence, neither the “socialist” mask of the junta nor the “democratic” mask of the EDU should fool us. They haven't and they wouldn't! The contradiction that exists between the two is only one within the enemy camp and hence only a temporary phenomenon.

This is precisely why the EPRP has in no uncertain terms pointed out that it “refuses to make a common front be it with fascists (who claim to be anti-feudal) or with feudalists (who claim to be anti-fascist.” (Abyot, #4, p.7)

As we have consistently pointed out in the pages of this Newsletter and elsewhere, it must be expected that as the revolution grows in strength the two would patch up their differences in order to “liquidate” the revolution. In fact there are recent indications that the two are making secret deals despite their respective rhetoric to the contrary.

US-led imperialism, in its desperate attempt to subvert the struggle of the people, also gives support not only to the junta but also to the EDU. This, of course, should not be surprising. Seeing the imminent downfall of the junta, imperialism is trying to use these feudal bandits in order to stage a come-back, if only under a different guise. In fact the recent news flurries in the various bourgeois press about the “successes” of these warlords in and around the Humera region is a clear indication of imperialist plans to use these forces for the criminal purpose of preserving its domination.

Whilst concentrating our attack against the fascist military junta and its intellectual mentors, we must continue our fight against these feudal bandits and their organization called the “EDU”.

It is also in this light that we view the recent propaganda war between the junta and certain bordering countries, the so-called “mini-summit” held in Khartoum where Numeiry, Sadat and Assad are reported to have discussed “the security of the Red Sea”, as well as the just completed shuffle of the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Talcott Seelye, who secretly visited both Addis Ababa and Khartoum during this “mini-summit”. Not surprisingly, EDU's leading representatives were also reported to have been around at the same time.

The panic in the enemy camp, be it in the crisis within the junta that was temporarily resolved by chopping off a few heads within its own ranks or the propaganda skirmishes, summits and diplomatic shuffles, etc. are the result of, and only of, the successful struggle of the Ethiopian peoples and their vanguard, the EPRP. And so long as the revolutionary and democratic forces continue to forge their unity and persevere in their armed struggle, mai[n]ly relying on it, combating all manouveres and interference and always keeping the initiative in their own hands, victory will certainly be theirs.