7 - Fusion and Fission: From Student Unions to Leftist Political Organizations

Summary

You should realize that you would be solely responsible for all the problems that would arise in the future from this issue of the Federation.

The Ethiopian student movement produced a number of organizations both at home and abroad. The process was characterized by alternating phenomena of fusion and fission. We have already seen in Chapter 3 the emergence of the University College Union (UCU) at University College of Addis Ababa (UCAA) and of the National Union of Ethiopian University Students (NUEUS) as an umbrella national organization inside the country, as well as that of the Ethiopian Students Association in North America (ESANA, later changed to ESUNA when the Association was renamed a union) and the Ethiopian Students Union in Europe (ESUE). The second half of the 1960s saw the continuation of NUEUS, ESANA and ESUE and the replacement of UCU first by the Main Campus Student Union (MCSU) and soon after – as a matter of fact, within a year – by the University Students Union of Addis Ababa (USUAA). In a somewhat similar manner as NUEUS was formed at home, Ethiopian students abroad also set up an umbrella organization known as the World Wide Union of Ethiopian Students (WWUES) to co-ordinate the activities of the two regional organizations as well as that of NUEUS. Even more than its domestic counterpart, however, WWUES remained a shadow organization, with most of the main activities being undertaken by its constituent units, mainly ESUE and ESUNA.

What these developments underscore is the importance that students had come to assume in national politics. This came largely because the country's authoritarian tradition had allowed no space for the emergence of political parties.