This week’s court ruling that found former Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam guilty of genocide could not have come at an opportune moment wheN Ethiopia is brooding over how to reinvent itself for the new millennium. Mengistu symbolizes everything that Ethiopia is trying to do away with famine, wars, ideology and others.

During Mengistu’s two decades long rule resulted in the killings and torturing of thousands, by some the carnage caused by his regime could tantamount to a whole generation. Bringing him to trial can truly be seen as a start of an effort of a nation to start healing from the wounds. Now that the trial is finally at its last legs following possible appeals by the defense by late December, it could be said that a dark chapter in Ethiopia is about to end.

But lessons should be learnt from this grueling experience, Mengistu came to power after the peaple of Ethiopia could not anymore tolerate the series of unmet demands by the monarchy. Fate or opportunities were ripe for the military junta to take power at the time when dissatisfaction, following action led to the disillusionment for the future. History teaches us that age-old grievances cannot continue to go unattended; reconciliation, tolerance and cooperation are vital for the survival of a nation. It is with this thought that we should go into the new millennium. Ethiopia has often been seen as an African tragedy, its magnanimous history, influence in Afro culture, it not being colonized have all made it an enviable as well as a symbol of African pride. But recent events in history such as wars, famines, border clashes have created a blemish on our proud history. We should try to gain back our pride by becoming symbols of a modern democratic state. Not a state where the political aisle is polarized and follows the principle of ‘either you are with me or against me’. We should not accuse one another of being unpatriotic or any other defect; rather, let us create an atmosphere of dialogues and mutual respect.

We owe this not to ourselves but also to those who have suffered over the years but to coming generations as well, who would be celebrating the next millennium after this one. We need to heal and maintain progress. We all voice concerns about development lagging behind and prefer to engage in arguments rather than working together to change the situation. We often forget that we are all on one side and we need to learn to put two words together- ‘team’ and ‘work’.

Ethiopia has for a long time made a detour from development, be it because of regional conflict, the Cold war or political impasses. The purpose of this editorial is not to lay blame but to point at the direction we should be going to. The final frontier has to be reached in regards to national reconciliation. But steps have been made in the past few years in regards to the growth of democracy. All can agree the period running up to the election was the first the nation can boast of. In fact we all could not believe that we could see such a phenomenon taking place in our lives but what happened following the elections requires a serious reconciliatory thinking, something that we as a nation cannot afford to discard at this point of time. We need to work more on compromise, tolerance and mutual respect as we count down towards the Ethiopian/Africa Millennium. We should not be disillusioned with the prospects of a new millennium and expect things to change by themselves, we all need to work together. •