ELECTION BUSINESS

Look at the hodam businesspeople supporting TPLF/EPRDF. Bigger meeting of 10,000 businesspeople planned

From left Hailemariam Desalegn, member of the central committee of EPRDF, and government whip at Parliament, Getu Gelete, owner and co-owner of several businesses including GetAs International and Getu Commercial Centre, and Woinshet Shewatsega, major shareholder of Woinu Curtai Plc and far left Tsegaye Abebe, president of the Ethiopian Horticultural Producers-Exporters Association at a meeting held at the Addis Abeba Convention Centre on April 7, 2010. The meeting, organised by a committee of 60 prominent businesspeople, was attended by over 1000 businesspersons who pledged to support EPRDF. They demonstrated their full support to the ruling party by managing to raise more than 20 million Br. The community stressed the need to maintain the status quo and pledged to give their support during the election as well. They gave priority to the need to maintain peace during or after the upcoming election. The business community also raised few of their concerns particularly on areas of tax collection and land allocation.

Hailemariam Desalegn,(L) who represented the EPRDF in the gathering and Tsegaye Abebe member of the organising committee looks forward to more cooperations

The businesspeople that met at the Addis Abeba Convention Centre (AACC) on April 8, 2010, and raised 20 million Br in support of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) are already planning another gathering 10 times as big to ensure that the ruling party remains in power.

The AACC meeting that brought together more than 1,000 businesspeople was organised by 60 prominent businesspeople including Tsegaye Abebe, president of the Ethiopian Horticultural Producer-Exporter Association and Getu Gelete, owner and co-owner of several businesses including GetAs International and Getu Commercial Centre. Over 1,000 businesspeople came from all 10 districts in Addis Abeba.

The EPRDF was represented in the meeting by Hailemariam Desalegn, member of the central committee of EPRDF, and government whip at Parliament.

Over 20 million Br had been raised from the business community that pledged to support the EPRDF, Abdulsemed Takele, who represented the attendants of the meeting, said. He also urged the business community to give their full support to the EPRDF.

“The main concern of the business community is that business activity not be disrupted following the election,” Tsegaye said to Fortune. “That is why we would like the status quo to be maintained.”

The business community took the opportunity to remind the incumbent that it needed to work on improving tax collection and land allocation. Twenty-three ERPDF candidates for the Addis Abeba City Council were introduced at the meeting.

The organisers of the meeting are planning a bigger meeting of 10,000 businesspeople at Millennium Hall in May, according to Getu Gellete. Various government officials could be at that meeting to respond to the business concerns that could be raised by the business community.

UPDATE 1-British geologist shot dead in Ethiopia

* British embassy spokesman Gavin Cook said that Reid, aged 39, was from the southern English town of Portsmouth. He was an employee of British firm IMC Geophysics International.

Ethiopia has not yet discovered oil or gas but companies including Petronas and Vancouver-based Africa Oil Corp (AOI.V) are prospecting in its deserts, pointing to oil fields in neighbouring countries.

The Ethiopian government also said on Friday that an Islamist rebel group, the United Western Somali Liberation Front the Somali region had surrendered. It had warned oil and gas firms not to explore in the area. [ID:nLDE6381FS]

"THEFT UNLIKELY"

Another rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which routinely warns foreign oil and gas firms away from Ethiopia, denied responsibility for the Briton's death.

"We are not involved in that assassination and we are sorry about the incident," a British-based spokesman, Abdurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, told Reuters. "We have ordered our military not to attack expatriate oil workers for now."

Several aid workers in the region, who did not want to be named, told Reuters they doubted theft had been the motive for the attack. "They didn't seek to steal anything," one senior foreign aid official said. "They simply opened fire with AK-47s and riddled the car."

In 2007 the ONLF attacked an oilfield run by Sinopec, Asia's biggest refiner and China's second largest oil and gas producer. Sinopec pulled out of the region where most of Ethiopia's oil and gas exploration activities have centred.

Ethiopia calls the ONLF a terrorist group, which it says is supported by rival Eritrea. The ONLF routinely accuses government forces of rights abuses. (Editing by George Obulutsa and David Stamp) deny involved in killing

Ethiopian rebel group 'agrees to lay down arms'

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

ADDIS ABABA — A rebel group in Ethiopia's southeastern Somali region has agreed to lay down arms after decades of guerrilla war, Communications Minister Bereket Simon announced Friday.

Leaders of the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) had, after talks with the government, "accepted totally to abide by the constitution of Ethiopia and operate legally and abandon the armed struggle," Bereket told a press conference.

"We expect these leaders to appear here soon to explain how they will operate in the Ethiopian legal atmosphere," Bereket said, hailing a step that "will help the stability and peace" in the region also known as Ogaden.

Bereket said that the UWSLF was not as powerful as it had been and operated mainly from Somalia while having links to Eritrea, with which Ethiopia has had tense relations since a 1998-2000 border war.

Created in the 1970s, the UWSLF was active during the 1977-78 war for control of the Ogaden, in which Ethiopia defeated Somalia. But the rebel movement has seen many divisions and became increasingly inactive.

Asked by AFP about the conditions of the rebels' decision, Bereket said the "government has decided to respect their right to operate in the Ethiopian legal system, to enter into more civilised and pacific politics."

"We'll not do accounting from the past. We'll do a fresh start," he added.

The UWSLF had agreed to play "the constitutional game", which "means you recognise there will be no army apart from the EDF (Ethiopian Defence Force," Bereket said.

He said the group was responding to change since "the overall trend in Ethiopia is positive, also in the Somali region, and the people are starting to understand the implications of this development work."

Like the Ogaden National Liberation Front, set up in 1984 in a split with the UWSLF, the rebel group has been fighting for the independence of the Ogaden, a region rich in natural resources and peopled mainly by Somali speakers.

Ethiopia says rebels threatening oil firms surrender

* Rebel group to disarm, form political party

STOCKS

* Another rebel group still threatens oil firms

By Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA, April 9 (Reuters) - An Islamist rebel group which had threatened to attack oil and gas firms exploring a potentially mineral-rich region of Ethiopia has surrendered, the government said on Friday.

The United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) had been fighting since the 1960s for independence for Ethiopia's Somali region -- which includes the Ogaden and accounts for one-fifth of the country's landmass -- government head of information Bereket Simon told reporters.

"After discussing with the government, the leaders of the organisation in totality have accepted to abide by the constitution of Ethiopia and desist from any armed practice," Bereket said. The rebels would now disarm and form a political party, he added.

The UWSLF and another rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), want independence for the region which borders Somalia, and had warned oil and gas firms not to explore there.

Foreign firms, including Malaysia's Petronas [PETR.UL] and Vancouver-based Africa Oil Corporation (AOI.V), are prospecting in the area.

The separatist cause has been fuelled by widespread resentment at the region's low level of development. Until Chinese engineers arrived in 2007, the entire region had only 30 km (20 miles) of tarmac road.

Bereket said the rebels had decided to surrender at the urging of locals who felt the insurgency was hampering government efforts to develop the region.

"They pursued a mistaken path, now they are desisting. We will respect their right to engage in peaceful, legal politics," Bereket added.

In 2007 the ONLF attacked an oilfield run by Sinopec, Asia's biggest refiner and China's second largest oil and gas producer, killing 74 people. Sinopec then pulled out of the region.

Most of Ethiopia's oil and gas exploration activities have centred on the vast desert province.

Ethiopia calls the ONLF a terrorist group, which it says is supported by rival and neighbour Eritrea. The ONLF routinely accuses government forces of human rights abuses.

Cash-strapped Ethiopia is keen to attract foreign investors and says the ONLF have been weakened since the 2007 attack. (Editing by George Obulutsa and Elizabeth Fullerton)

Photo Cocktail

Photo: Meles and his family severely panicked

Dear readers, the above picture of PM Meles Zenawi ,daughter Semhal Meles and spouse Azeb Mesfin , all in an extremely terrified situation and severe panic, was taken last 14 November 2009 during the inauguration of the Tekeze Hydropower Plant .

Due to a mob , criticizing shouts and unaccounted security issues ,as can be seen in the photo above, Meles had to cut the inauguration session and be rushed to Addis Ababa palace “without visiting all the places he had intended to”. .The panic was exacerbated by the push of the crowd.

Japan, please don't go grabbing Ethiopians' land

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Active duty: Young Nic (right) on patrol while serving as a Game Warden in the Simien Mountains of northern Ethiopia in the late 1960s. The man on the left, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, was Assistant Warden Mesfin Abebe, and the two men behind were local vigilantes who joined us in pursuit of illegal loggers. C.W. NICOL PHOTOS

OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Reflections on feelings and farmland born of an exciting time spent serving Haile Selassie

By C.W. NICOL

On March 15 just gone, this newspaper carried an excellent but disturbing article by John Vidal, environment editor of the London-based Guardian newspaper. He wrote about food shortages and land-grabbing in Africa, and I was particularly troubled to read about deals going on to sell Ethiopian land to foreign investors. In the article, an Ethiopian government spokesperson was quoted as saying that "Ethiopia has 74 million hectares of fertile land, of which only 15 percent is currently in use — mainly by subsistence farmers . . . "

High tea: Senior Game Warden John Blower (right) takes a break and looks forward to a well-earned cuppa in a spectacular setting among the towering Simien Mountains. At the time, we were on one of our boundary-mapping treks that led to an Imperial proclamation in 1969 establishing the Simien Mountain National Park precisely within the area we had suggested.

From September 1967 until October 1969 I was the first Game Warden of what was soon to become the Simien Mountain National Park in the northern mountains of Begemdir province in Ethiopia — a 220-sq.-km expanse that was enshrined in law with a proclamation by His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie printed in the Negarit Gazeta newspaper on Oct. 31, 1969. That proclamation defined the park's boundaries as those mapped out by myself and Senior Game Warden John Blower, the Addis Ababa-based Brit who was the boss of all the country's game wardens.

At the time, of course, that was encouraging news, soon after I left Ethiopia I started hearing about more wild land being plowed up, more forests cut down and — almost daily — rifle shots heard around the great Simien escarpment, home to the endangered walia ibex.

I had departed Ethiopia with a heavy heart, knowing it was heading for more chaos and internal strife, large-scale land erosion, loss of forests and wildlife — and inevitably, mass starvation.

Together with my very able assistant, Mesfin Abebe, a graduate of the Tanzanian College of Wildlife Management, and our 20 rangers, we had fought and struggled for two years to establish the park. We had done our best to deal with poachers, hill bandits, illegal loggers and illegal farming on vulnerable watershed slopes, all made worse by rampant corruption — from local governors and police to senior officials in our own central wildlife department.

Towards the end of my sojourn in Ethiopia, I drove the 800 km or so to the capital, Addis Ababa, for meetings about the new park boundaries. The city was in chaos. The university and nine secondary schools were closed. Truckloads of soldiers and police were everywhere and I saw jeeps mounted with 50-calibre machine guns. The students were not allowed to gather, even in small groups, and hundreds had been arrested. Wild rumors were heard and repeated — there was going to be a coup d'etat . . . some students had been thrown into a cesspit and drowned by the Imperial guard . . . the army was poised outside the city, ready to come in and take over . . . five young people had been jailed for five years for distributing pamphlets . . . all foreigners would be killed.

On that particular visit, I myself — with a machete in one hand and a Walther PPK in the other — faced down a vengeful mob as I was driving along a lonely, muddy track on the outskirts of the city. Two Ethiopian students of English tried to reason with the mob, saying that I was helping the country, but the mob wanted blood. I was pretty angry, and a bit of a wild man at that age, so after firing a couple of shots in the air, I tossed the machete onto the seat beside me, stuck the pistol in my belt, then quickly collared two rabble-rousers (as a Game Warden I had the rights to search, seize and arrest) and hurled them into the back of the vehicle. The people in front had to either scatter or get run down, but about 50 screaming men and boys chased after my vehicle, throwing stones and waving knives, machetes and sticks.

Why the fuss? I couldn't think of anything I'd done or said to get them so enraged, but I was a foreigner and all foreigners were suspect during that nervous time. I drove the captives to a hospital, had them checked out so they couldn't later claim I had run them down or something. Getting money out of scared foreigners that way was a minor industry back then in Addis Ababa.

If that wasn't enough, a friend from the Israeli embassy later told me that I was marked for assassination. An attempt had already been made on my life in Gondar, the old castled city and provincial capital of Begemdir, where I sent off reports to the capital and picked up supplies and wages for park staff and workers.

One night, walking back to my hotel from a bar along an unlit, deserted lane, two men came at me from behind wielding iron-tipped clubs. Thanks to my karate skills I was able to fight it out without drawing my pistol. After the skirmish I returned to my hotel to bandage up the wounds on my hand and forearm. The next morning, as I was having breakfast and getting ready to return to the park, a student I was friendly with came to the hotel and told me that, just after the fight, a police Land Rover drove up the lane with its lights out and officers dragged the two attackers I had left lying on the ground to the vehicle, tossed them into the back, and drove off. Later, other witnesses told me the police had driven the men beyond the city limits and dumped them in a field outside the local slaughterhouse, a place that attracted hungry hyenas.

On my next visit to Gondar, when I made inquiries to the police about the incident they claimed to have known nothing. This was not surprising, as the Chief of Police was involved in the illegal wild-animal fur trade, which we had been disrupting. That unsavory gentleman had already warned me to stay away from fur traders. I told him that as I was a Game Warden, it was my job not only to protect the park but also to find and arrest such criminals.

When I got back to Gondar from Addis Ababa after the park boundary meetings there were riots there too. A police Land Rover had been burned. Police with guns faced the students. At night, they dragged students out of their houses and beat them with clubs while their parents watched and pleaded for them. A couple of bright young men whom I knew vanished.

Then there were the anti-Arab riots.

The Eritrean Liberation Front had been blowing up planes and generally making a nuisance of themselves, and there had been reports in the press about links with Syria. A huge "spontaneous" anti-Arab parade was held in Addis Ababa, with Amhara warriors wearing their lion-mane headdresses, carrying round shields and curved scimitars. In cities and villages all over Ethiopia, Arabs were beaten up and their shops were stoned or even looted.

At that time, several cultured Ethiopians came to me, asking if I could get guns and ammunition for them. (Of course I could, but would not.)

I cannot imagine now, in 2010, that Ethiopians have changed so much that they will stay subdued and silent while being displaced from their land by foreign investors. I especially fear that the Amhara, who are Coptic Christians, will be incensed if Arab Muslims are involved in any moves to take away their land rights. The Amhara are an especially proud and ancient people. It was ordinary Ethiopians, many of them barefooted and lightly armed, who finally drove out the Italian invaders in 1941, despite their machine guns, howitzers, planes and tanks.

Nothing I can do or say will change any of this, but even so I, with deep respect for Ethiopians — and as a citizen of this country — urge Japan not to join in this greedy scrabble. We have far too much arable land going to waste here in Japan. Land and food is not only a question of money. People who live off their land feel deeply about it, no matter how poor and defenceless they may seem.

Japan should shun this new kind of colonization like a plague, no matter what well-paid city-based officials may say. As other people who have lived and worked in the country have noted, I can myself affirm a strong belief that there is no land in Ethiopia that has no owners or users.

Back in the late 1960s, we had enough problems establishing a national park, one in which farmers were allowed to keep on using their land. We tried to stop poachers and illegal loggers, and that was not easy. I doubt if we would have survived if we had tried to take the locals' land from them — even if it was for reasons of wildlife protection or water conservation.

Japan, please, by all means help poor African farmers — but do not have anything to do with displacing them!

Ethiopia: the hunger has never gone away

Ethiopia: the hunger has never gone away

March 19, 2010 - 7:00am

Lifestyle by Ronan Scully GalwayCityTribune

By Ronan Scully

‘I seek not aid, nor seek I gifts. I ask not for bounty nor ask for riches. I call for compassion. I call for care. I call for insight. I call for awareness. I call for thoughtfulness. I call for consciousness. I call for apprehension. I call for consideration. I call for recognition. I call for respect. I call for sanity. I call for real hope. All for our world and its children.’ (A Poem by Someone who can see and cares)

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent country and, with the exception of a five-year occupation by Mussolini’s Italy, avoided colonisation. Unfortunately best known to many for its droughts and conflict, Ethiopia is surprisingly mountainous and lush. Known as the ceiling of Africa, two-thirds of the country sits on a plateau between 6,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level.

Throughout history this rugged terrain shielded Ethiopia from outside influence. Amharic is Ethiopia’s official language, but roughly 70 different other languages and 200 dialects are spoken. The country has its own alphabet, one of only 13 in the world, and its own calendar – this year is 2002 in Ethiopia.

Reading some of the stark facts about Ethiopia is depressing; approximately 15 per cent of the population of Ethiopia is concentrated in urban centers, while 85 per cent of the 80 million populations reside in rural communities. With such a significant portion of the population dependent on rain-fed subsistence agriculture, which accounts for approximately 42.1 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, the majority of Ethiopians are vulnerable to climatic shifts.

The country is one of the poorest in the world with approximately 44 per cent of the population living in extreme poverty; the people have a life expectancy of 49 years; the infant mortality rate is about 20 per cent, and over three quarters of the population live on less than a euro a day, a crushing poverty of such depth that we in Ireland could not even imagine.

But to witness it, as I just did recently, is enough to make you weep. There are twice as many Ethiopians hungry today as there were during the 1984 famine when one million people starved. This uneasy truth means that, every year, up to eight million people, twice the population of Ireland is starving and in need of some form of food subsistence.

Ever since I saw the BBC’s Michael Buerk’s report on the famine and heard Bob Geldof and GOAL’s John O’Shea shouting at the tops of their voices for the international community to wake up to the catastrophe there, I have wanted to work in Africa, especially in Ethiopia. Now, over 25 years later, having spent many years working for GOAL both at home and in the developing world, I recently got the chance to visit Ethiopia again for a fourth time for work and personal reasons.

Arriving in the region of Borena and Awassa after a 24-hour air and road trip was surreal. I had viewed photographs and read reports before I arrived there. This was not a photograph or a dream. I really had arrived in Ethiopia. In the span of two days travel I had left behind my family and friends and comforts of the Emerald Isle and travelled, what felt like, half way around the world.

It is only through the randomness of birth that I am Irish; I could easily have been Ethiopian (actually my daughter is a beautiful Ethiopian angel). My heritage was not my choice, but rather than focusing on our differences, meeting these people and children in Ethiopia has made me realise how alike we are. We breathe the same air. We walk the same way. Our spirits need love and acceptance. Our bodies need food, water and sleep. We share the same humanity. We are really not so different.

The facts of life don’t make for good reading as regards life in Ethiopia:

More than 80,000 children die from malaria each year yet untreated mosquito nets cost just €2 and treated mosquito nets cost only €5. Unemployment rests at around 80 per cent. Most of the 80 million people who live in Ethiopia survive on less than €1 a day. There are large amounts of orphans and street children – witnessing this, as I said before, is enough to make you weep.

HIV and AIDS is one of the contributing factors to why so many children live on the streets. As parents die and relatives prove either unable or unwilling to provide care, children are left to fend for themselves. Some street children are involved in high levels of sexual activity and, as the young girls rescued by GOAL have told us, many are raped and abused at the hands of older street children and men, putting them at risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and AIDS.

what is development? review of Ayittey's works in Ethiopia's context

"Development was almost everywhere in Africa misconstrued to mean "change" and the "adoption of modern and scientific methods." In this rote behavior the real meaning was not clear. The approach was akin to what educators call the "refrigerator fallacy." All teachers have refrigerators and therefore if one tried hard enough to acquire a refrigerator, one would become a teacher! The developed countries were industrialized and therefore if one acquired enough industries (and perhaps a nuclear bomb), presto one would become a developed country. " George Ayittey.

ACTING FOR DEVELOPMENT - applies to Meles and Co.

Clearly, this perverted way of looking at things shifted the emphasis away from the rigorous process of training to become a teacher to the rather facile task of acquiring the "symbol" of the occupation to be considered a teacher. Similarly in development, the emphasis was shifted from understanding the modus operandi to a preoccupation with its symbols. If an African head to state showed off a brand new shiny piece of imported tractor, it would "prove" that agriculture had been "mechanized." Precisely what that tractor was supposed to do to improve agricultural productivity or whether the support infrastructure existed or not was irrelevant. The mere presence of the tractor was of overriding importance. Such antics and obsession with symbolism betrayed a woeful lack of understanding of the development process.

he problems Africa faces today have little to do with the slave trade, colonialism or racism but more to do with bad leadership and bad governance, originating from the establishment of defective economic and political systems and the debauchery of state institutions. Cut these institutions loose from the clutches of the despots and the African people will do the rest of the job of transforming their societies.

Economic development does not mean the wholesale and blind acquisition of the symbols and signs of modernity. Nor does it mean everything about indigenous Africa must be rejected in favor of alien systems. In fact, the true challenge for development practioners is how to use the existing so-called "primitive, backward and archaic" institutions to generate economic prosperity. These institutions can never be alienated from Africa's peasants. They are part of their culture. One cannot expect these peasants to suddenly renounce their age-old traditions and ways of doing things. Nor is such abjuration absolutely necessary, as demonstrated by the stupendous success of the Japanese. The Japanese did not have to become "Americanized" or "Sovietized" in order to develop(Ayittey,2006) .

He also says Development deals with people. In Africa, the people are the peasants -- the majority in every African nation. The environment in the field of development is their socio-economic and political set-up. That is, the whole gamut of their social, economic, cultural and political institutions at the grass-root level. Like a seed, if a development project does not fit into this socio-economic milieu or set-up, it will fail.

Africa's current development crisis emanates from the defective approach adopted by African elites and leaders with considerable support from foreign governments and multilateral agencies. Once again, it is the approach which is being criticized, not the objectives of development.1 What occurred in Africa was development by imitation. Grandiose projects and schemes were copied abroad and transplanted into Africa.

American farmers use tractors and chemical fertilizers; so too must we in Africa. New York has skyscrapers; so too must Africa in the middle of nowhere. London has doubledeck buses; so too must Accra and Lagos. The Soviet Union has state farms; so too must Africa. In 1964, Nkrumah demanded a bylaw to require all advertisements in Accra to be lit by neon so that the streets of the capital would resemble Piccadilly Circle in London. France once had an emperor. So Bokassa of the Central African Republic spent $20 million in 1976 to crown himself an emperor. Rome has a basilica; so too must Ivory Coast. The United States has two political parties; so too must Nigeria. Accordingly, the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida created two political parties: the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention.2 To add more insult, the military regime also wrote their party manifestoes. The list of this type of unimaginative aping ("so-too-must-we" syndrome) in Africa is endless.

OF THE AFRICAN ELITES--this applies to Professor Andreas Eshete, Dr Samuel Assefa and the likes

The most painful and treacherous aspect of Africa's collapse was the wilful and active collaboration by Africa's own intellectuals, many of whom were highly "educated" with Ph. D.s, and who should have known better. Yet a multitude of them have prostituted themselves, selling off their principles and integrity to partake of the plunder, misrule and repression of the African people. In fact, according to Colonel. Yohanna A. Madaki (rtd), when General Gowon drew up plans to return Nigeria to civil rule in 1970, "academicians began to present well researched papers pointing to the fact that military rule was the better preferred since the civilians had not learned any lessons sufficient enough to be entrusted with the governance of the country" (Post Express, 12 November 1998, 5).

So hordes of politicians, lecturers, professionals, lawyers, and doctors sell themselves off into prostitution and voluntary bondage to serve the dictates of military vagabonds with half their intelligence. And time and time again, after being raped, abused, and defiled, they are tossed out like rubbish --- or worse. Yet more intellectual prostitutes stampede to take their places.

African countries that have imploded in recent years were all ruined by the military: Algeria, Burundi, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire, among others. In country after country in Africa, where military rule was entrenched, educational institutions (of the tertiary level - universities, and colleges) have all decayed --- starved of funds by the military. Although the official excuse is always lack of funds, the military predators always find the money to purchase shiny new pieces of bazookas for their thugs. But the real reason? "It is not in the best interest of these military governments to educate their people," says Wale Deyemi, a doctoral student at the University of Lagos. "They do not want people to be able to challenge them" (The Washington Post, 6 October 1995, A30).

"Swiss-Bank" Socialism --applies to EFFORT and Co. plunderers

The "socialism" instituted in Africa was a peculiar type ("Swiss bank" socialism) that allowed the head of state and phalanx of kleptocrats to rape and plunder their national treasuries for deposit in foreign banks. Julius Nyerere was perhaps the only true practicing socialist, but his Chama Chamapinduzi (CCM) party was hopelessly riddled with corruption. Even Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, generally regarded as the "father of African socialism," was reputed to have stashed millions away in Swiss and other foreign banks, according to the Azu Crabbe Commission of Enquiry set by the Government of Ghana in 1967 to probe Nkrumah's assets.

Only a few African countries, such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Kenya, Senegal and Togoland, spurned the "socialist path" and opted to stay with the "Western system." But this system too, like the indigenous African system, was not well understood either. Adopted in these countries were bastardized "Western models" that were characterized by heavy state intervention in the economy, a preponderance of state enterprises, one-party rule, declaration of life-presidents, personal dictatorships -- all of which were un-Western. In fact, beyond the diplomatic posturing and ideological rhetoric, there was little real difference between the "socialist" and "capitalist" (or pro-West and pro-East) African regimes.

Strictly from the African point of view, the ideological paradigm was irrelevant. Africans were not Americans, Chinese, Cubans, or Russians. In fact, it was probably for this reason that African heads of state declared themselves to be "non-aligned." But then, "non-alignment" turned out to be a strange type of movement that congregated in Havana and Harare to bash only the West. Insidiously, Marxism, Leninism, and all sorts of alien "isms," copied from abroad, were imposed on Africa by the same African nationalists preaching "non-alignment."

The portraits of Marx and Lenin graced the Red Square in Moscow. So too must go Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Cotonou (Benin), Luanda (Angola) and Maputo (Mozambique). Cuba had People's Defence Committees; so too must Ghana. The colonialists never accepted Africans for what they were and tried to remould them. In the post-colonial period, it was African leaders who were trying to reshape Africans in the image of foreigners.

ON PRESS FREEDOM-applies to the jamming of VOA by Meles

It is often easy to overlook the critical importance of "intellectual freedom" -- a catch-all phrase embracing freedom of expression, press freedom, and free flow of information. A pertinent characteristic of totalitarian or tyrannical political systems is the rigid control exercised over the content and flow of information: what can be said, printed or disseminated by the people, editors, and publishers. The free flow of information is vital for an economy if investors are to make sound decisions. It is thought that the manipulation and control of information triggered the Mexican peso crisis in 1994.

In Africa, the flow of information is severely restricted. Writing in Free Press (May 5-11, 2000), Ghanaian columnist, Eddie Fisher noted:

• Government or the politicians’ perception of a good press is the subservient and sycophantic one which exists to build them up, boost and promote them or propagate and publicize their activities. But where the press spurns such demands and performs its traditional role as the watchdog, it automatically incurs the wrath of the governing elite who take the offensive posture and resort to any available measure either to stifle it or silence it completely” .

Ethiopia's donors asked to condemn 'attack'

Last Updated: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 | 1:28 PM ET

CBC News

The Ethiopian government is waging "a co-ordinated and sustained attack" against its opponents ahead of May elections and countries like Canada that send aid to Ethiopia should condemn it, a new report says.

Georgette Gagnon, the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division, released her group's report in Nairobi, Kenya, on Wednesday. (Human Rights Watch)

"Ethiopians, millions of them, are unable to speak freely, organize political activities, challenge their government's policies, either through peaceful protest, voting, or publicizing their views without fear of reprisal," said Georgette Gagnon, the executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, speaking at the report's release in Nairobi, Kenya, on Wednesday.

She slammed the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front for having "systematically punished opposition supporters" since it was elected in 2005 and called on foreign governments to step up and voice their concern.

If foreign governments do not speak before the May 23 elections, "election day is likely to be ... a veneer of democratic pretension hiding a repressive state apparatus," the report said.

Canada is 4th-largest donor

Canada contributed up $132 million in aid to Ethiopia in 2007-2008, according to the Canadian International Development Agency, or CIDA, making it the fourth-largest donor to the eastern African nation. One-third of Ethiopia's government expenditures come from foreign assistance, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Canadian International Development Agency provided aid to Ethiopia worth $132 million in 2007-2008. (Patti Gower/ACDI-CIDA)

Much of that aid is being used by the government to oppress, rather than help, the Ethiopian people, said the non-profit organization, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide.

The government has used "the full weight of its power" to silence its critics, the group said, including closing an independent newspaper in December and jamming the local language programming of Voice of America in February. In 2008, it also imprisoned opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa, of the Unity for Justice and Democracy Party.

Activists and other journalists have fled the country as a result, it said.

Call to action for foreign donors

Despite such actions, the country's principal foreign donors, including the World Bank, United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Canada, have been "very timid in their criticisms of Ethiopia's deteriorating human rights situation," Human Rights Watch said.

"Ethiopia's foreign backers should break their silence and condemn the climate of fear in Ethiopia," Gagnon said.

The group also called on the Ethiopian government to release all political prisoners, including Midekssa, end attacks against opposition members, journalists and civil society, and allow independent groups to investigate and report abuses publicly.

Ethiopia's ruling party came to power in 2005, when it won 327 seats in the country's 547-seat house. The party went on to win 99.9 per cent of the vote in local elections in April 2008, a landslide that allowed it to consolidate its control over local administrations and rule "with an iron grip," according to Human Rights Watch.

The group interviewed more than 200 people during 15 weeks of research in Ethiopia for its report, entitled One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure: Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia.

Interviews were conducted with farmers, teachers, civil servants, activists, opposition and government officials, as well as foreign diplomats and aid officials.

Ethiopia's elections will be held May 23.

Ethiopia: an aid success story or a tyranny?

Our money is eradicating poverty. But it may also be used to prop up a repressive regime

Camilla Cavendis

Talking to an Ethiopian journalist who has fled his country rather than face charges under his Government’s new anti-terror law. Intimidating journalists is a pastime in Addis Ababa; few are left. “The country is very poor, it needs aid,” he says, “but the Government uses aid to repress dissidents.” A former aid worker I talk to goes one step farther. “Aid has become an instrument of coercion,” he says simply.

These whispers coming out of Ethiopia have been drowned out by the noise about the possible hijacking of some of Bob Geldof’s Live Aid money in the 1980s. The Mengistu regime then was shambolic and venal: it is plausible that rebel leaders did siphon off money to arm themselves.

But today’s Ethiopia is an aid success story. It is still desperately poor — ten million people live on the brink of starvation — but its urbane leader, Meles Zenawi, is making real progress in training health workers, vaccinating babies and getting more children into school. This potent combination of need and hope has made Ethiopia one of the biggest recipients of foreign aid in the world, and the second-biggest recipient of British aid.

To international donors Ethiopia is a precious example of poverty alleviation in a land plagued by drought and famine. But to human rights campaigners, and even some Western aid workers, it is a regime of increasingly sophisticated duplicity. Donors say that Mr Meles’s Government is delivering aid more efficiently to the poor than many other African countries. But it looks as though the machine he has built to deliver aid could also be a ruthless instrument of repression.

Two weeks ago, the US State Department listed a vast range of human rights abuses in Ethiopia, from torture to detention without charge. It also cited “credible reports that the ruling EPRDF used humanitarian assistance to gain support for the party by denying opposition political party supporters access to humanitarian assistance, including relief food, public services, and microfinance loans”. The charge is not that aid is being siphoned off, but that it is being used to entrench one-party rule.

Those allegations are reinforced today in a report by Human Rights Watch. It describes farmers denied seeds, teachers sent on propaganda training and people unable to get a government job without a reference from a party official. It accuses the Government of building a culture of fear ahead of elections in May.

The last elections, in 2005, were the most democratic the country had seen. Too democratic: as opposition parties made big gains, the vote descended into violence. Thousands were arrested. Some are still in jail, including the 34-year-old woman who leads Ethiopia’s Unity for Democracy and Justice Party.

The bloody crackdown shocked the West. Donors suspended “budget support” (direct aid, not for specific projects) to the Ethiopian Government. But not for long. Direct aid soon resumed under a different label, the “Protection of Basic Services” (PBS) programme. Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID), an enthusiastic supporter, says PBS “shifts power from the centre” because it funnels money to the regions.

But far from decentralising power, Human Rights Watch warns that PBS is reinforcing Mr Meles’s apparatus of control. It says that the Government has jacked up the number of local officials to four million, that these control access to everything from food to microcredit, and that many villages are organised in cells that encourage neighbours to spy on each other.

Can a Maoist system have been built under donors’ noses? Or are these stories from the disaffected? Having been an aid worker in Bangladesh, I know that there is never enough aid to go round. I have doled out food to hungry people knowing that the queue is too long. The empty-handed can be bitter. But this sounds like something more. Last year Mr Meles passed two draconian laws that strengthen his grip on the country. A terrorism law criminalises many forms of dissent. A charities law so restricts foreign funding for civil society organisations that one aid official in Addis told me: “It will kill human rights NGOs.”

DfID has launched an investigation into the allegations. Officials point out that Mr Meles has vehemently denied the allegations, and promised to investigate any evidence. But when HRW sent a researcher to meet farmers complaining that they had been denied seeds, the farmers were arrested and the researcher deported. The same thing seems to have happened in January to a Bloomberg journalist.

Like Yoweri Museveni in Uganda and Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Meles Zenawi won Western approval by talking the language of development. Like them, he has provided stability. Like them, he has improved lives at the expense of freedom. The question for the West is how far we accept that trade-off. There must come a point when cronyism and fear make it harder to pull people out of poverty.

I know full well that compromises must sometimes be made to keep people alive. Aid workers fear that reducing aid would hurt the poor. What they do not say is that this would also hurt the aid industry, which has so much vested in Ethiopia.

As Ethiopia has become more repressive, our aid to it has increased, from $1 billion in 2004 to $1.85 billion in 2008. Yet the West has made no meaningful representations against abuses. It is time to challenge Mr Meles to amend his new laws, end intimidation and let the media in. The people who have spoken to me for this article should not have to whisper. Nor should the West.