Core Values

MISSION

The ENC started life with a two sided mission. Expressed with the misnomer Congress and the Senate, the dichotomy connoted parliamentary organizing and caused miuunderstandings, internal problems and eventually a split among its founding members. The internal upheaval gave a false image of the ENC as a political party that struggles for political power and office. The only way to counter this impression was for the ENC to remain actively engaged in creating awareness in individual, human and democratic rights, in exposing human rights violations and in promoting civil society activism, including promoting understanding and dialogue between political parties so that civil society would have viable alternatives to choose between.

This led the ENC to undertake the role of facilitating cooperation between political parties whose proliferation has been causing confusion in the opposition camp. Until May 2000, it sponsored, facilitated and conducted seven round-table meetings for political parties, with 8-13 parties participating at different times. These meetings, two in 1998, three in 1999 and two in 2000, enabled the parties to develop and adopt memorandums of understanding and minimum common programs. The ENC also facilitated and helped them create an All Party Conference Organizing Committee. After two years, this conducted a weeklong conference in July 2003. At that conference, 17 political parties formed the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF). After the May 2005 elections, there emerged a further need for national reconciliation based on mutual trust and breaking of the cycle of division, fear and recriminations among the political parties and coalitions. This was beyond overcoming their organizational and financial weaknesses. The ENC, therefore, along with ETA and EFJA, contacted the CUD, UEDF and EPRDF, and tried to organize a peace conference in Washington DC. This was publicly announced and the continuing attempts are widely appreciated.

Such mobilization for changing the hegemony of the political scene, like its advocacy to expose abusive human rights violations, has brought ENC’s civic activities to bear upon the Ethiopian political scene. Unfortunately, this added to the ‘political’ image of ENC. Nevertheless, many believe that the facilitating an understanding among the various political coalitions is a way of forming credible and democratic opposition to the current regime. The ENC too considers its facilitating role in that regard as a fulfilment of its civil duties of generating political choice for Ethiopian civilians.

The ENC has ardently continued to revitalize its role of promoting civic movements, particularly in Ethiopia. Accordingly, the ENC was finally incorporated in the District of Columbia in February 2003, and in March 2003, the executive committee developed a new action plan, revised its constitution, its organizational instruments and its mission, and worked to incorporate the ENC as a legal body. Its revised Constitution was adapted at its delayed 7th Congress in May of 2004. Having eliminated the confusing Senate/ Congress dichotomy, it applied for and gained non-profit 501 (c) (3) status from the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) in 2006.

Thus formally reorganized as a civil association, the ENC published on its web site a five-part on-line discussion on civic movements and their importance in enhancing and maintaining democratic rights. From March to May 2004 it posted various press releases on the formation of the UEDF, on rights issues, democratic and human rights violations. It also organized educational conferences on issues ranging from the importance of civic participation in creating democratic institutions, to the importance of the unity of fragmented political organizations in bringing peace and democracy to Ethiopia, and to the ways and means of promoting civic movements in Ethiopia and the Diaspora. It accompanied these educational activities with enhancing its contacts with such civic associations as the Ethiopian Free Journalists Association (EFJA), the Ethiopian Teachers Association (ETA) and others. Until the free press was banned in Ethiopia, it joined these august associations in preparing and releasing a number of joint communiqués regarding the 2005 election. In the event it was participating in a landmark process where Ethiopians showed their determination to exercise the right to vote for the party of their choice, irrespective of the fear of rejecting those already in power. The result of all the activities of the ENC to that date was to sustain its organizational and functional capacity, and plan for the future.

In formulating its activities for the next decade (2007-2017), the ENC envisages spreading the value of civil associations and their role in the democratic process, in promoting awareness of individual rights and in undertaking civic duties as individual responsibilities. It hopes to create a community of people who can consciously lead in the development, protection and defense of their inalienable rights. Towards that end, the ENC will continue to recruit and convince members to form ENC chapters in the diaspora, to engage in the promotion of civic education, and to establish working relationships with civic institutions in Ethiopia.

Targeting its members and the rest of the general public the ENC will engage in a civil education process of conferences, seminars and similar other activities to promote the following:

These five points are responses to the felt needs of cultivating the growth and development of civil society. Rather than being restricted to relief and development activities only in times of famines and crises, or to servicing only their members, civil associations will remove biases such as the “downgrading” of civil activism as ‘political’ – the latter having become something that people dread even to talk about. The points above will be the basis for the commonality of the roles of civil associations, for their common understandings and operational guidelines, for their frameworks for cooperation. They will help them define their duties, rights, responsibilities and unified action. It is with this spirit that ENC invites members of the public to share their views, opinions and knowledge.

As part of our contribution to the development of democracy in Ethiopia, that is, we hope to provide additional channels for representing diverse interests. The seminars, workshops and symposiums of the ENC will additionally generate a sense of civic virtue, a culture of tolerance, of moderation, of willingness to compromise, and of participation in public affairs. That is to say, changes in certain civil association practices are needed. We refer to the fact that Other than development oriented NGOs, for instance, all such associations should provide only for their members. Only the few that are engaged in human rights advocacy display a sense of wider social responsibility. To bring about the necessary change, existing barriers of this sort must be removed. We hope to inculcate the need for undertaking responsibility beyond membership. After all, this will empower civil associations financially and provide them with critical mass for influencing changes in policies that marginalize or repress.

In brief, the ENC will help generate an environment in which individuals and networks will coordinate their efforts around various interests and on behalf of marginalized members of society. Perhaps an umbrella organization might emerge, and hopefully in consultation with all civil associations, it will develop ways and means of instilling democracy, challenging unjust and illegal practices, protecting individual human and civil rights, and asserting the basic rights of people. Together, we will find ways of achieving stability and sustainability in democratic institutions and processes that we will all initiate.

To summarise, ENC objectives specifically regarding civil societies revolve around awareness-raising programs. In the near future, many in different parts of Ethiopia will understand the scope, diversity and practices of civil society organizations. Existing civil society organizations will reach consensus on how to collaborate among themselves so that they will enhance their roles in promoting social justice, generate self-help movements and uphold democratic values. They will select civil society functions and make them compatible with traditional self-help association activities. ENC and other civil society organizations in Ethiopia will gain strong and improved leadership skills and organizational capacities for educational, organizational and outreach work. Towards this end, civil society associations will prepare clear, relevant, culturally sensitive, awareness-raising materials. ENC hopes that Ethiopians will achieve an increased level of knowledge on civil society issues, responsibilities and roles.

Thank you

Tsehai B. Selassie
Chairperson, Ethiopian National Congress (ENC)

ON-LINE DISCUSSION ON CIVIC MOVEMENTS

Looking forward: The need for coordination of effort by Ethiopian Civic Movements
Manifold difficulties face advocacy, the main tenet of any civic movement in Ethiopia. Mentioning two of the major difficulties pertinent to the Ethiopian political scene is critical in understanding the strategies and dynamisms of the ENC.... more

CIVIC MOVEMENTS: Their Roles In Democratizing Society
If there is anything that has pre-occupied the minds of many concerned and patriotic Ethiopians, it is the dream of establishing and building democratic institutions, culture and political system. However, very few seem to understand that those noble ideas and dreams cannot be realized without the growth and development of civic institutions....more

Similarities and differences between political parties and civic organizations: A comparative analysis of the missions 
In the past ten years, a number of civic and political organizations have been established in Ethiopia and overseas. Many of the political and some of the civic organizations are government created. The rest are established by the free will of individual citizens, primarily to defend the unity of country and the interests of its people, using legal loopholes. Their main motivation of almost all citizens that organized political and civic groups was to deflect the effects of the divisive ethnic politics, disastrous economic and social policies, gross human rights violations introduced by the single party dictatorship of the EPRDF....more

Developing a "third force": Why and How the ENC works to promote Democracy
Democracy is acquired when members of a society are free to agree on policy options that govern their political, legal, economic and similar other concerns. The key principle is the freedom to choose, and its practical side is the entitlement to choose. Neither “choice” nor the entitlement to choose falls out of the sky. They do not come as naturally as breathing, eating, sleeping or other attributes of the human body, although universally accepted legal and moral principles make them appear so.... more

The Ethiopian National Congress (ENC) is hereby launching an on-line discussion on civic movements. It has prepared write-ups on a number of topics on the matter, and has invited individuals and Ethiopian civic groups to make contributions. We will share this next.

The goal of the on-line conference is to start an Ethiopian public discussion on the meaning and scope of civil movements so that there is a common understnading among all. The purpose is to promote the rights of individual to participate in advocacy programs of defenidng individual rights.

The ENC tries to find a voice of advocay for those who are unable to represent their issues to the public. Issues can range from famine, to physical or mental challenge, to environmental degradation, to political rights or the rights of professional asociations or individuals.

Central to advocacy is its non-governmetal base. The advocacy we have in mind at the ENC is slightly different from monitoring and reporting on human rights abuses, though these too are carried out by civic groups. We hope that our discussion papers will clarify the ENC perspectives.

As we discuss the issues, let us define the type and scope of civic movement that we wish to see as priority areas for contemporary Ethiopia. Let us also see if we can lay the foundation for the future public ownership of our Ethiopian affairs. There is room for state politics. However, let us consider how we can own our destiny additionally as a public that is free and independent of the vagaries of state politics alone. Let us see how we can spell out the performance of our puplic responsibilities and duties to our nation.

Here ... is the first discussion paper. The ENC invites all to join in the disussions.

Landinnet,

The ENC Executive Committee

ETHIOPIA^S UNIVERSITIES:
Ethnic Warfare Against Academic Freedom
By Azeb Zemariam

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. Jefferson
During its infamous rule of barely a decade, the TPLF-led ethnic apartheid regime of Meles Zenawi (Killilism) has effectively destroyed the national education systems and opportunities of the Ethiopian people while building up the educational infrastructures of Tigrai. more

held in Minneapolis, MN, May 27-29, 2000. To read the report and resolutions click here.

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