Report reveals 84pc of loans DBE advanced used for intended purposes 

Massive loans poured over the years into commercial farms in the Gambella Regional State have results with 84pc spending on the intended purposes, but with disappointing results of productivity that is a fraction of the investments, a report presented to the Prime Minister’s Office reveals.

The report comes after an investigation into allegations of mismanagement of loans, favoritism and impropriety on the part of recipients surfaced last year.

Many of the allegations were about the subversion of over 3.3 billion Br in loans advanced by the two state owned banks to private investments in the regional state, known to have vast fertile land and lightly populated area in the South-Western part of the country. However, large chunk of these loans were made available by the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), whose long time President, Esayas Bahre, was relived off his position few weeks ago by the Prime Minister’s Office. He was accused of favoring certain group of developers in loans provisions, which were allegedly misused for investments other than commercial agriculture.

Out of a total of 600 developers in Gambella, 200 of them received loans from the DBE and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) to finance 206 projects, and before the DBE suspended loans to the commercial farming sector earlier this year. They were issued with close to five billion Birr in loans, to be disbursed over a certain period of years. Of that amount, DBE provided 2.76 billion Br, while CBE’s share was 587 million Br.

“Most of the allegations have to do with the money being used for unrelated things,” said one commercial farm developer who asked to remain anonymous. “There were rumors that some of the investors used the money to put up buildings here in the capital or abused their duty free privileges.”

There were indeed cases of misuse of funds and abuse of privileges, according to the investigation carried out by a technical committee of 13, composed of members from experts from three ministries, the regional state, the two banks, and two experts from Agricultural Investment & Land Administration Agency. It was under the supervision of another political body, comprising of seven high profile members of the Administration, appointed by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, in May 2016. Alemayehu Tegenu, a state minister for Agriculture & Industrial Policy & Planning Implementation Supervision, chaired the investigative committee, thus owns the report, which reveals list of inappropriate use of funds.

In one instance, Alemayehu’s report found out that an unnamed developer has brought to the country 78 vehicles abusing a duty free privilege, while another developer has failed to use 498.7tns steel imported, worth over three million Birr, for the purpose of constructing a camp inside the farm.

A significant number of vehicles bought using loans and duty free privileges were used for purposes other than farming, including sales to third parties, says the finding. Of the 189 imported vehicles, all but 33 were nowhere to be found when investigators visited the farms.

But DBE officials find that hard to believe.

“They can’t be sold to third parties,” said a senior manager at the DBE. “The vehicles are supposed to be registered under the DBE. That is unless they were unregistered from the beginning.”

What should be more troubling to the DBE though is a higher percentage of the loans taken as working capital was spent on unrelated purposes. Close to 278 million Br was not spent on the farms, from a total of 1.2 billion Br injected into commercial farms as working capital.

“Although much of the loans were used for their intended purposes, some of the developers have used their loans to purposes that were not aimed for,” says Alemayehu’s report.

However, these and plenty of other misuses represent 16pc of the total loans, reveals the report.

The report, submitted to the Prime Minister, prompted a meeting couple of weeks ago held by Hailemariam and Kebede Chanie, director-general of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA) with presidents of the two banks, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture & Natural Resources, and Gambella Regional State.

They were greeted with a report that disclosed that of the 229,755ha of land conceded to commercial farms developers in eight weredas of the Gambella Regional State, close to half of them began their initial operations and preparations with investments worth two billion Birr remain in project phase.

“There is confusion in the commercial farming industry and elsewhere about how the DBE loans were disbursed,” said a senior banking official at the DBE. “There were some things in the report that could have been explained by DBE’s operators.”

Following the appointment of Getahun Nana to the presidency of the DBE, many meetings have been held to discuss the issue of investments in commercial farms. In one of the meetings with district managers, the new president expressed his confusion on the findings of the Alemayehu’s report. Getahun has called for another detailed study to be conducted, although no details have been announced yet.

Getahun, who has served the central bank for many years prior to his current appointment, was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts by Fortune.

The Bank he is entrusted with suffers from higher percentage (over 50pc) of non-performing loans from a total of 11.8 billion Br loans and advances it has made in 2015/16. But much of the default comes from its financing of the manufacturing sector, whose share of these loans reaches at close to 60pc. The share of the agricultural sector in default is less than 15pc, according to company sources.

Nonetheless, the Bank’s senior managers and the Administration officials who have made the DBE a policy-bank have a lot to worry about on value for money. Of the 3.35 billion Br the Bank has disbursed, the return on investment was only 6.6pc, exposing that investments in commercial agriculture is not after all a bonanza.

“Productivity in private farming is not profitable; takes longer years to recover the loans; and its contribution to the national economy is insignificant,” Alemayehu’s team passed its verdict in its findings.

Access to land, provisions of loans and advances as well as administration of commercial farming estates are major sources of “rent seeking” where there is a network of middlemen, transacting kickbacks from 50,000 Br to 400,000 Br, disclosed Alemayehu’s report. Unusually, the report has identified the names of 21 middlemen accused of running the network of high-level corrupt individuals.

The investigative report is not without a challenge from the Bank and within the Administration. The criticisms come as a result of the exclusion in the committee of some of the developers or the private sector, while the report suffers from an oversight on those commercial farms which have succeeded. It also skips the profits made at the end of the fiscal year, for the investigation was conducts in the middle of it. It has also failed to identify the role and place of foreign investors in the region such as the now bankrupt Karaturi, an Indian investment, and Saudi Star.

“This report proves to us that there really is a bias against the sector and against us the investors,” said a group of five commercial farm developers who spoke with Fortune on the condition of anonymity, due to the controversy the report now flares.

These are among 231 developers who had applied for loans from the DBE, but were forcibly evicted from their leased properties in Gambella by regional authorities in February 2016. The authorities say that the developers were accidentally given lands that were under federal jurisdiction.

But they are not alone in their challenge to the findings. The Gambella Agricultural Investors’ Cooperative, chaired by Yemane Seifu, sent an email to Fortune, expressing its disappointment over the Alemayehu’s report with no uncertain terms.

“The committee presented a misleading report to the Prime Minister,” said the Cooperative.

BY DAWIT ENDESHAW
FORTUNE STAFF WRITER

Source: http://addisfortune.net/articles/results-from-gambella-commercial-farms-disappointing/

By Andrew Korybko | for Global Research,

Because of the unpredictability of the Eritrean government and the opaqueness of the information environment within the country, it’s very difficult to tell exactly what sort of plans might be brewing in the Red Sea state. It can safely be assumed that Ethiopia will not provoke a potentially destabilizing conflict with its former province because it literally has nothing of strategic significance to gain by this, whereas Eritrea has everything of subjective benefit to acquire if it can overthrow its rival’s government, divide its territory into Identity Federalized-statelets, and possibly even repeat the Eritrean scenario over and over again until Ethiopia itself ceases to exist as a geopolitical entity.

Upping the ante in any potentially forthcoming conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea is Asmara’s newly christened relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which might predictably end up getting drawn into the prospective conflict (whether directly through troops or indirectly through back-end assistance) or outright participate in conniving it as a means of derailing the rise of what would otherwise become the super region’s undisputed and multipolar leader.

Any GCC support to Eritrea or even the pretense thereof would undoubtedly rattle China, which is soon to be basing some of its forces in its first-ever overseas military facility in Djibouti and has a vested interest in seeing one of its closest non-Asian allies remain stable and succeed in its fast-rising ascent.

Key to China’s concern about Ethiopia’s well-being is the railroad that it constructed between that country and Djibouti, the first reliable access route since Eritrea’s 1993 independence that Ethiopia has for reaching the global economy. China envisions that Ethiopia will play a key role as a major node along the One Belt One Road (OBOR) global connectivity platform, and as such, it would likely respond in a negative fashion to any foreign military aggression against its pivotal ally.

Nevertheless, there is only so much that China can and is willing to do, and providing direct side-by-side military assistance in any potential conflict isn’t one of them. However, Beijing would likely work at a breakneck speed to reach some sort of diplomatic solution in ceasing hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea as soon as possible, which might see it even offering its own troops up as trusted peacekeepers in the same manner as it’s already been doing in neighboring South Sudan.

If the GCC in any way flexes its muscles or intimates that it will do so vis-à-vis assisting its Eritrean ally, then China would most likely lodge diplomatic objections towards them and possibly consider economic or even military asymmetrical posturing countermeasures in sending them the message that it will not sit by idly while they endanger the viability of its entire Horn of Africa OBOR policy. This is pertinent to mention because the GCC and its affiliated Turkish ally already have, are suspected of having, or are on the verge of acquiring, bases in the following countries:

* Eritrea – UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
* Djibouti – Saudi Arabia, Qatar
* Somalia (Somaliland) – UAE
* Somalia (Mogadishu) – Turkey

Positioned on a map, it’s clear to see that the GCC and Turkey are forming an encirclement ring around Ethiopia that could easily be used to exert pressure against it, whether through their support of Eritrea or perhaps even Somalia’s Al Shabaab.

Speaking about the second subject and Somalians in general, if the GCC and Turkeyuse Somalia as a launching pad of destabilizing influence against Ethiopia, then it’s obvious that this would involve some sort of disturbances in the Somali Region (formerly called Ogaden), whether this takes the form of outright terrorist attacks or masquerades as Color Revolution-focused “protesters”.

Correspondingly, if the two fronts of destabilization are timed to coincide with one another, then an eruption of violence near the Eritrean and Somalian borders could split the Ethiopian Armed Forces and make them vulnerable to internal destabilizations such as the Hybrid Wars that will be described in the following section. Of direct relevance to China is that violence in the northwestern part of the Somali Region in Ethiopia could lead to immediately negative consequences for the transnational railroad to Djibouti that transits through the area, which would thus prompt Beijing’s previously described and projected involvement in the crisis.

Depending upon if and when it happens, the more time that passes until a possible Ethiopian-Eritrean Continuation War, the more time that there is for the GCC to strengthen its strategic position in Eritrea and provide decisive assistance to its new ally in shifting the currently equitable balance of power against Ethiopia.

If this turns out to be the case, then the chances that China would more loudly and visibly provide support to Ethiopia also increases, and this might even reach the point of sending frontline military advisors and urgent shipments of state-of-the-art battlefield equipment.

Essentially, what could easily sprout up is a major proxy war between the GCC and China over control of the Horn of Africa, and in the run-up to this potentiality, both sides could even frenziedly build up their partners’ military capabilities through what would amount to a rapid arms race in the region. Eventually, it might get to the point that the GCC compels Eritrea to ‘test the limits’ of the tense peace that it has with Ethiopia in order to acquire battlefield testing for what might then be its latest munitions, which could of course unwittingly get out of control and usher in a regional conflagration that raises tensions between the GCC and China to the breaking point by extension.

“Weapons of Mass Migration”

The last region-wide destabilization template that could be applied in the Horn of Africa is the utilization of the two forms of “Weapons of Mass Migration” against Ethiopia and Eritrea that were earlier described in the research. Pertaining to Ethiopia, the influx of nearly a quarter million South Sudanese refugees into the region of Gambella (which has just a slightly larger population than that) might become a majorly disruptive element if not properly dealt with. The geographic peculiarities of Gambella are such that it lies on an equal plane as South Sudan does, separated from the rest of Ethiopia by the mountains that run along its north-to-south western-oriented axis. This reality is both a facilitative factor for incoming refugees and a potentially inhibitive one for the armed forces in responding to any forthcoming disturbances there.

Provided that there aren’t any other significant internal conflicts at the time, the Ethiopian security services should be able to concentrate their forces enough to keep the peace in Gambella, despite the Gambella People’s Liberation Movement being one of the five terrorist groups recently united under last year’s militant umbrella and likely endeavouring to use the refugees in a self-interested Hybrid War manner.

For example, this organization might be working to either arm them or the locals, seeking to sow the seeds of discordant hatred between the new arrivals and their endemic hosts so as to foster a bloody provocation that would force a military response. In turn, this might be used as per tried-and-tested Color Revolution techniques in order to smear the military for “killing civilians and/or refugees” and propagated as a rallying symbol for domestically provoking a Color Revolution (whether in the region, the capital, or all throughout the country in coordination with its regime change allies), internationally ‘isolating’ the authorities, and painting them in a negative light that preconditions the global public for accepting the intensification of regime change Hybrid War. Moreover, Gambella is so important precisely because it neighbors the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region and could be the source of a destabilizing contagion of ethnic violence that turns the diverse area into Ethiopia’s domestic version of a South Sudanese bloodbath.

The other version of “Weapons of Mass Migration” that are being deployed in the Horn of Africa is the Western-originated strategy to prompt a large-scale outflow of “refugees” from Eritrea. The domestic push factor of the policy of indefinite military service mixed with the pull factor of the EU’s 91-93% acceptance rate of Eritrean “refugees” has created such a massive demographic crisis for the country that 400,000 of its slightly more than 6 million total citizens have already left over the past six years.

The effect has been to weaken the economic, military, and social strength of the country with the anticipation of prompting a political crisis in the coming future, the effect of which might be a lot more unpredictable and far-reaching than what the West might expect to be a simple Rose Revolution-esque regime change operation.

More than likely and owing to the specific domestic and regional circumstances that Eritrea presently finds itself in, a concerted anti-government movement within the country (whether composed of Color Revolution ‘protesters’ and/or Hybrid War ‘rebels’) might lead to the total collapse of the government, which itself could unleash a swarm of refugees to Ethiopia and Europe and possibly even elicit a militarized response from rival Addis Ababa.

Additionally, the procedurally shifting strategic balance between Ethiopia and Eritrea as a result of the latter’s artificially created demographic crisis might lead Asmara to seek to strategically compensate by intensifying its new ties with the GCC, which as described earlier, could then unleash a GCC-China proxy arms buildup and even a potential war.

Regardless of how far this scenario would eventually go, it would certainly lead to these out-of-regional actors doubling down on their support for their respective allies, with a distinct scenario focus being the reinforcement measures that the GCC could take in propping up its ally in Asmara from collapsing due to the weaponized demographic strain that it will definitely come under if the human outflow isn’t halted in the near future.

Once again, this would trigger the cyclical security dilemma of the GCC upping aid to Eritrea while China does the same to Ethiopia, which would move the region close to an all-out continuation war, albeit one which owes its most immediate cause to the cumulative enfeebling effect that the West’s “Weapons of Mass Migration” would unmistakably have on Eritrea and its leadership’s need to strategically compensate by seeking out GCC assistance.

A new report from the Oakland Institute debunks the myth that Ethiopia is the new “African Lion.” Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia exposes how authoritarian development schemes have perpetuated cycles of poverty, food insecurity, and marginalized the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia

The reputation and credibility of international peacekeeping is at stake

“The regime in Addis Ababa could recall its peacekeepers as the political crisis in the country deepens.”

Like a keen school kid who thinks he knows the answer to all the questions that the teacher asks the regime in Addis Ababa is the first one to raise a hand whenever there is a talk or a need for international peacekeeping. The immediate question is why? Is it because the authoritarian and brutal regime that continues to terrorize its own people cares about world peace or is there an ulterior motive behind it? How could it be that the regime that uses all available military and police forces against peaceful and unarmed civilians would be concerned about regional and global peace?

The answer to these questions is simple and straightforward. However, it is important to establish a context within the international diplomatic arena and the state of the world as it relates to the world strategic and political order. For those who are not familiar with the current political contour of Ethiopia, the country is effectively a one-party state of ethnic-kleptocracy. This single party authoritarian system of governance is further compounded and riddled with problems because the political and economic power is solely controlled and managed by the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) which claims to represent less than 6% of one hundred million population of Ethiopia. Astute and curious 21^st century political analysts might raise two key questions from this fact. Firstly, what is a liberation front created to “liberate” a particular ethnic group doing governing the entire country? Secondly, why is the country’s political landscape entirely saturated with ethnic political groups. Well, these two questions by themselves require separate analysis and examination. Nevertheless, I believe the questions themselves offer some kind of context to the political reality of Ethiopia.

So, why is the TPLF so keen to participate in international peacekeeping. Obviously, all authoritarian regimes suffer from a malnutrition of legitimacy from their own people whom they claim to govern. In the absence of consent from citizens, they search for legitimacy and recognition elsewhere.  Most of the time, they feed their illusion of legitimacy by concocting bogus elections and ultimately declaring themselves the winners of 100% of the vote. As was the case in the 2015 national election in Ethiopia where the regime declared 100% victory. No, it is not a joke. Just ask United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice.[1]

Currently, this hundred percent ‘victory’ is being rejected by the people of Ethiopia, as a popular uprising spreads like a wild fire across the country. As far as the people of Ethiopia are concerned the regime is an elected and illegitimate.  While this is the reality of the political landscape in Ethiopia, the regime is attempting to garner support and legitimacy from outside the country. Its involvement in international peacekeeping is precisely meant to achieve this objective.

Hence, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)-led authoritarian regime in Addis Ababa has significantly accelerated its contribution to international peacekeeping, and currently there are 59 police, 104 military experts, and 8170 troops[2] dispatched by the TPLF regime serving in peacekeeping missions in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, the Sudan regions of Darfur and Abeyi, and South Sudan.

Concern for peace is the least defining characteristic of the regime in Addis Ababa. In fact, since its inception the TPLF has exploited conflicts in side the country and the region. Furthermore, this violent group directly and indirectly manufactured national and regional conflicts to advance its political and economic agenda. For instance, its role and involvement in Somalia and South Sudan raises a serious concern. Peace and conflict analysts and political observers allege that the rise of al Shabaab in Somalia and the ongoing crisis in South Sudan is the making of the TPLF regime. These are the true natures and the distinct characters of the regime. In this context why is the TPLF always jumping on peacekeeping missions?

Here are the main reasons:

First, TPLF views international peacekeeping as lucrative business/money making opportunity. According to the UN’s publicly available information “countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly, of a little over US$1,028 per soldier per month.” Which means based on the current troop contribution TPLF pockets close to one billion US dollars a year (8333 troops x $1028= $85,663.24 x 12months =$10279588). How much of this fund is allocated to the participating troops or police officers is not disclosed, and there is no system of accountability or an official audit. Peacekeeping to the TPLF regime is the wider extension of entrenched corruption within the economic and political system of Ethiopia.

Second, the regime’s eagerness to dispatch troops to international peacekeeping is motivated by gaining some level of international prestige/recognition, which it often propagates for a local audience, as well as the outside observer. This allows it to project an image of an internationally responsible regime. In doing so the regime believes it can harvest legitimacy to govern, which it has lost from the citizens of the country it rules with an iron fist.

Third, participating in international peacekeeping helps the regime create an illusion of ‘peace’ and ‘stability’ at home. The fact is that the situation in Ethiopia is a full blown crisis. There is no a single part of the country which is not experiencing anti-government uprising. In addition, on top of the peaceful popular uprising, several armed groups are challenging the regime’s legitimacy and authority to govern. Given this fast escalating political crisis in the country, diplomatic sources are indicating that the regime could withdraw its peacekeeping troops posted in several countries to quash pro-democracy movement in the country.

TPLF routinely uses its military and police to silence dissent, torture citizens, and murder peaceful protesters. This has been the case in Ethiopia over the last twenty-five years. Furthermore, authoritarian regimes such as the regime in Addis Ababa, and many others including Burundi and Uganda have blackmailed the international community threatening to withdraw their troops from various missions unless the West stops advocating for human rights or criticize their overall political and economic policies. This is further confirmation of the regime’s unreliability as they see their participation in international peacekeeping as a reward for their brutality and violations of citizen’s rights.

How is it morally and ethically acceptable that members of the same police and army are welcomed the fold of international peacekeeping? Doesn’t this contradict the very values and principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)? The UN must uphold its own values and principles and hold those who violate the rights of citizens accountable instead of offering them a platform of legitimacy at the international stage. Furthermore, engaging authoritarian regimes in international peacekeeping has a reliability problem. The possibility of the troops from Ethiopia being recalled is real. Hence, the UN must consider this factor seriously before involving peacekeepers from countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.

The author can be reached at alem6711@gmail.com

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFXl4avLVw

[2]http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml

Source: ECADF

First Published: 2016-09-17 Middle East Online

The US is unable to reconcile all these ‘friends’ who make war without its permission, plot against each other and pursue their own interests, neglecting the US umbrella (or borrowing it without autorisation), notes Gérard Prunier.
Middle East Online
Ethiopian army reconnaissance units crossed into the Tsorona region of Eritrea shortly before dawn on 12 June, and encountered Eritrean patrols. Within minutes, a long stretch of the former front line in the war of 1998-2000 erupted into heavy artillery shelling, tank movement and gunfire. Eritrea condemned this as an act of aggression by Ethiopia; Ethiopia maintained an awkward silence, then on 14 June issued a bellicose statement declaring it was capable of full-scale war against its neighbour.

This threat may seem a disproportionate response to a border skirmish, common since the uneasy Algiers agreement signed in 2000. But it needs to be seen in the context of tensions far more serious than they seem. On 18 June a discreet emergency meeting was held in Washington at the request of the Ethiopian government, and three days later representatives of the armed Ethiopian opposition met in Geneva. The Ethiopian regime has marginalised all dissident movements so there is no civil opposition. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of the former prime minister and president Meles Zenawi (who died in 2012) has 472 of the 527 seats in the House of People’s Representatives. In 2015 and 2016, revolts by the Oromo and Amhara peoples, who have been left behind economically, were brutally suppressed.

June’s political and diplomatic activity coincided with military deployments. Ethiopian soldiers have been stationed in Djibouti’s Tadjoura region since 6 June, under an agreement signed with its president, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, in May. The head of the Djiboutian army publicly stated that under this agreement the Ethiopian army could enter Djiboutian territory without prior consent, use local military facilities and even intervene in internal conflicts.

Ethiopia fears Arab enemies

The agreement was hastily concluded after the announcement of a contract, to develop the port of Berbera, between the government of Somaliland and the Dubai Ports World (DP World) company (the third largest global port operator). After the 1998-2000 war, Ethiopia lost its direct access to the sea. In Djibouti, Ethiopian forces are squaring up to Eritrean ones, which have been there since the border clash of June 2008 between Eritrea and Djibouti over Cape Doumeira. The armies are separated by a thin line of Qatari troops, deployed in June 2010 at the request of both parties. Ethiopian forces are also present in the Afar region, close to the Eritrean port of Assab, just when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are trying to turn it into a deep-water naval port opposite Yemen.

The geopolitical situation in the Horn of Africa is chaotic. Ethiopia has a long-standing fear of being surrounded by its Arab enemies, who, it believes, have used Ethiopia’s Eritrean enemies to gain a foothold on the African continent. This might seem paranoid, but the long history of Muslim threats to the former Abyssinian kingdom makes it understandable. These fears have been reinforced by Egypt’s fierce opposition to the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile.

It will take seven years to fill the reservoir with 67bn cubic metres of water, and during this time the flow of the river will be reduced by 25%. Egypt has even contemplated destroying the dam, a measure supported by former president Hosni Mubarak. While it is impossible to imagine Saudi-Emirati forces attacking Ethiopia, it is conceivable that Egypt might threaten Ethiopia’s new base at Assab — especially with air power — in the name of Arab solidarity. The idea that attack may be the best form of defence is gathering support within the close-knit EPRDF circles who are responsible for Ethiopia’s security. But Ethiopia — which is one of the most significant powers in the sub-region — would then suffer military retaliation from the whole Arab coalition, or financial and diplomatic reprisals.

Djibouti is the weak point in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Though generally presented as a haven in a conflict zone, Djibouti has become a focus of regional ambitions. It still has a French military base — a colonial legacy, with 2,400 personnel costing France $33m a year. Since 1999 the US has also had 4,000 personnel on the ground at a cost of $66m, enabling it to launch drones against targets in Yemen and Somalia. The Japanese also have a few hundred men here, plus two ageing Lockheed maritime surveillance aircraft that they have been using to fight piracy since 2011; at a cost of $22m, this is the first new overseas base the Japanese military has had since the second world war.

The Germans and Spanish don’t have bases in Djibouti, but do have several dozen soldiers at Djibouti City’s Kempinski Hotel. And it has been announced that from the end of this year there will be a Chinese base at Tadjoura (well away from westerners) with 5-10,000 troops and perhaps a Russian aircraft carrier. The undisclosed annual cost could. The undisclosed annual cost could be between $28m and $94m, depending on whether the Chinese build a port and airport; construction is under way. Russia is also informally exploring establishing a military presence in Djibouti.

Foreign troops in Djibouti, which is just 23,000 sq km (the size of Slovenia), will soon outnumber indigenous forces. But is this country really a nation state? ‘Djibouti is less a country than a commercial city state controlled by one man, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh,’ according to a US embassy cable from 2004 released by WikiLeaks. Guelleh, who took 87% of the vote in the presidential elections this April, remains in absolute control. Military policy is an essential tool in this hereditary principality, which since 1977 has been controlled by the Guelleh family and the Mamassan sub-clan of the Issa clan. Djibouti, like Eritrea and Ethiopia, is run by an authoritarian regime and is on human rights organisations’ watchlists.

Battle over ports

Djibouti is heavily dependent on its port, which generates 76% of its GDP; 80% of this business comes from Ethiopia, which has been denied access to Assab since the 1998-2000 war. Against this background, the non-recognised state of Somaliland signed a trade agreement on 8 May with DP World, which is owned by the government of the UAE. This put Somaliland’s port of Berbera in direct competition with Djibouti.

Abderrahman Boreh, Guelleh’s main opponent, lives in exile in Dubai and has close links with the UAE. In 2006 he encouraged DP World to do a deal with Djibouti. In 2013, after Dubai refused to extradite him, Guelleh rescinded DP World’s port concession and granted it to a rival company (the UK’s High Court threw out corruption charges brought by Djibouti against Boreh over this affair). Relations were so acrimonious that diplomatic ties between Djibouti and Dubai were severed this April.

DP World’s deal with Somaliland over Berbera, with Boreh pulling the strings, has caused alarm in Djibouti. Berbera, a former British colonial port, has long been neglected; it only handles 40,000 containers a year, compared to Djibouti’s 900,000. But Ethiopia has announced it wants to move 30% of its traffic there and DP World plans to invest $442m in it — more than Somaliland’s annual budget. This explains Guelleh’s hurried visit to Ethiopia to offer a ‘security accord’ permitting the Ethiopian army to treat his country like a conquered state. Ethiopia had already expressed its desire to ‘consider Ethiopia and Djibouti as one and the same territory’ in 2014 — a de facto limitation on Djibouti’s sovereignty.

Guelleh’s worries have been fuelled by Boreh’s conspicuous manoeuvres. Boreh requested an official invitation to Somaliland’s 25th anniversary of independence celebrations on 18 May. This was refused, ‘as that would have amounted to a declaration of war on Djibouti’, an official from Somaliland said. But tensions remain acute, especially as Boreh belongs to an Issa sub-clan, the Yonis Moussa, victims of a massacre in central Djibouti in December 2015. The circumstances remain unclear and the exact number of deaths unconfirmed. The Yonis Moussa form 60% of Djibouti’s army, which has been deployed in the Mabla Mountains north of the Gulf of Tadjoura, where it is supposed to be fighting the Afar rebellion by the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD). Since the December 2015 killings, the army’s desire to fight has evaporated.

Guelleh is trying to cope by rallying support from the Gadabursi sultan Abubakar Elmi Wabar, an opponent of the authorities in his native Somaliland. But Guelleh has a complex network of alliances, and faces contradictory threats: he is seeking aid from the Ethiopians — who are pursuing their DP World deal in Berbera — and he is dealing with Ethiopia’s Arab enemies, who are demanding a military base in Djibouti to support their war effort in Yemen.

Saudi intervention in Yemen

The Yemeni conflict is another element. Only the 30km of the Bab El-Mandeb (Gate of Tears) Strait separate Africa from Yemen. And until the outbreak of civil war, Yemen had been the main transfer point for refugees, political and economic, from the Horn of Africa, heading for Europe. But in 2011 Yemen was caught up in the Arab Spring. Ali Abdullah Saleh, its pro-western dictator since 1978, was later ousted. Yemen had already been contending with the (particularly active) Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) as well as a Zaydi insurrection in Saada and Amran provinces, and the uprising left the field to these movements.

Zaydi forces (known as Houthis after their original leader, Hussein al-Houthi, killed in action in 2004) rapidly took the capital Sanaa, where they joined forces with the deposed Saleh. On 25 March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni countries intervened. The (Shia) Houthis were suddenly marked as an Iranian ‘fifth column’ on the Red Sea, while Saleh’s successor, Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi, was held up — improbably — as a symbol of democratic renewal. And so Yemen’s African neighbours were drawn into the Arab maelstrom.

In April 2015, shortly after the Saudi attack, Eritrea’s president Isaias Afewerki signed a far-reaching cooperation agreement with the Saudis and the armed coalition within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Gulf Arabs then arrived in Assab to build an airport from which Saudi bombers now take off, and the port was quickly upgraded. The first (modest) contingents of Eritrean troops went to the Yemeni front and the cooperation then extended to the Sudanese regime of President Omar al-Bashir, who also sent troops in exchange for significant Saudi funding. Eritrea also expelled Yemeni opposition figures.

Such intense political and military activity has caused anxiety in Ethiopia. Seeing its mortal enemy, Eritrea, forging a close alliance with Arab states is alarming — the more so since the US feels it must make a gesture to the Sunni Arab world to compensate for its nuclear deal with Shia Iran, and so is wholeheartedly backing the Saudi-led coalition. On 8 June, a UN commission of inquiry found good reasons to believe that ‘crimes of enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, persecution, rape, murder and other inhumane acts’ had been committed in Eritrea since 1991. But with its GCC connection, Eritrea is benefiting from an unusual degree of indulgence from the US — while, to please the GCC, the US has been keeping dubious company in the region.

In July 2015 the Gulf states and Saudis invited Somaliland’s president Ahmed Mohamoud Silanyo. The meeting was a piece of theatre in which each actor played his role to perfection. Silanyo was asked for troops and permission to use the port of Berbera; he didn’t refuse but was non-committal, and the GCC leaders pretended not to realise. Honour was preserved.

Djibouti’s president Guelleh has also behaved cautiously over Yemen. Guelleh, like his enemy Silanyo, was non-committal when asked to open (another) base for the Saudi-led coalition and to send troops to Yemen. Eventually he granted permission for Saudi transport planes — but not war planes — to land. Though both Djibouti and Somaliland are at loggerheads over the Red Sea ports, they share the same tacit reservations over Saudi/Gulf military operations in Yemen.

Status of Somaliland

The final element shaping regional geopolitics is the question of Somaliland. The country has existed de facto for 25 years, but remains officially unrecognised. Consequently it receives almost no foreign aid and is not a member of any international organisation. It has a government, an (unarmed) police force, a (reasonably well equipped) army and a respected judicial system. It has also been at peace for 20 years. Unlike its African neighbours, it functions on incontestably democratic lines and holds regular, peaceful elections.

This surprising democracy is the successor to the former protectorate of British Somaliland, which claimed independence after the civil war of 1981-91 that ravaged Somalia following the fall of Siad Barre. Somaliland, which is governed cautiously, almost timidly, is threatened by diplomatic attrition and underdevelopment; it also suffers from the quarantine imposed by the international community. But it has succeeded politically. In contrast, Somalia has sunk into internal conflicts: In 2006 the Ethiopian army, supported by the African Union, had to intervene to enable the Somali transitional federal government to retake the capital, Mogadishu, from warlords and the Union of Islamic Courts. Somalia also suffers from terrorism by the Islamist Al-Shabab militias, as demonstrated by the deadly attack on a hotel in the capital on 25 June.

The agreement of 8 June with DP World changed the picture: Somaliland, already vulnerable, now finds itself surrounded by a regional conflict. The effects will be many and potentially destabilising because the agreement represents an economic and political threat to Djibouti. It places this fragile state in the orbit of the UAE and risks upsetting its internal stability. The port of Berbera, however sleepy, was the only significant economic anchor in a very poor country. As part of the fiefdom of the Issa Moussa branch of the Habr Awal clan of Issaqs, it fed the local population and provided the clan with a comfortable income which it now fears losing. The danger of clan warfare, which Somaliland has managed to contain for a quarter of a century, may be reactivated.

Somaliland survived ten years of national and five years of regional civil war, and 20 of poverty and international marginalisation. Can it survive a disproportionate financial surge and diplomatic and military exposure with parameters it cannot control? In such a troubled region that question remains open.

The imperialism of the major powers is in crisis: It is contested, fought against, interfered with or bypassed by a plurality of ‘mini-imperialisms’ with which it now has to deal. That is not to say that China, the US, France and Russia are no longer powerful; but like Gulliver attacked by the Lilliputians, the giants progress less confidently, hampered by awkward allies and half-enemies. Many local troublemakers are showing a level of determined activity as dangerous as the actions of the big beasts. Worse, the actions of these local players have little to fear from public opinion that is now more concerned about internal questions than geopolitics.

In the Horn of Africa, the US is in a very awkward situation. Apart from Eritrea and Sudan (which would do anything to have economic sanctions lifted), every state in the region is officially a ‘friend’. Egypt is doing all it can to suppress the Muslim Brothers; Ethiopia remains a faithful ally (though it gazes at China longingly); Djibouti is acting like a satellite for international globalised capitalism, ready to welcome the devil if he comes with an IMF endorsement; the Saudis and Gulf states are sulking but have no alternative godfather to the US. Somaliland begs for a little pity. Eritrea is the only dissident, although its ruined economy and exodus of young people mean that it ends up begging on the doorstep of the powerful.

The US is unable to reconcile all these ‘friends’ who make war without its permission, plot against each other and pursue their own interests, neglecting the US umbrella (or borrowing it without authorisation). The Arab coalition received nearly $10bn of US military supplies to pursue a war for which the US has no enthusiasm. The GCC has also alienated Ethiopia by bailing out Eritrea, and has set all of the US’s clients and allies against each other, perhaps throwing them into the arms of China.

Gérard Prunier is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council.

Translated by George Miller

The current government in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), often claims the multi-national constitutional federalism that it introduced a quarter century ago answered the country’s age-old question – famously known as the ‘national question’ – once and for all.

Ethiopia’s constitution, the government further claims, is multi-foundational by its nature and adequately addresses the politics of recognition and inclusion for Ethiopia’s long marginalized nations; better yet it guarantees the right to self-determination up to secession. States are now autonomous and free from the yolk of a centralized state and the notion of “one country, one people, and one language”, a notion that had violently governed Ethiopia’s oppressed mass for at least a century.

Today’s Ethiopia is a ‘federal democratic republic’ of nine autonomous national regional states: Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Harari, Oromiya, Somali, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and Tigray. All of them home to an incredibly diverse and free people, so the story goes.

For the last two decades, therefore, anyone who questions the accuracy of these narratives is labeled as an outright enemy of this unique polity, a polity born out of its people’s age-old grievances where “unity in diversity” is the order of the day.

Trouble in paradise

But a five month persistent protest by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, for whom the inaugural of a multi-national constitutional federalism was a long awaited victory, which started in Nov. 2015 has laid bare the otherwise flawless narrative Ethiopians have believed in for more than two decades. What began as an opposition against a The Addis Abeba Master Plan, which was, by any legal standard, prepared in a clear violation of the fundamental principles of federalism, led to historical questions that the Oromo of a federated Ethiopia continued demanding an answer for, including the questions of national identity, of economic injustice and land ownership as well as a genuine political representation.

However, a look back at just the last eighteen months alone reveals that the Oromo are not the only ones that seem to be haunted by the re-opening of the old wounds that Ethiopians thought were treated two decades ago.

Incidents that resulted in the killings of hundreds, mass arrests and disappearances as well as displacements of thousands of Ethiopians in the hands of the state security apparatus show that the questions of national identity, the urge for self-administration and equitable use of resources (mainly land) and lack of adequate political representation have re-emerged afresh in five out of the nine independent regional states in the federated Ethiopia.

The ever restive Gambella

Home to around 200, 000 people, the Nuer, Agnuak, Apana, Mezhenger, and Komo are the main indigenous peoples of Gambella. But it is also home to other ethnic groups from the country such as the Amhara, Oromo and Tigray. According to a 2007 census, of the total ethnic composition in Gambella the Nuer consists 40%, followed by the Agnuak who make up 27%, Amhara 8%, Oromo 6%, Mezhenger 5.8%, Keffa 4.1%, Mocha 2%, and Tigray 1.6%, as well as other ethnic groups mainly from various regions in Southern Ethiopia who constitute 5.5%.

Unlike the triumphant declaration of a constitutional federalism however, Amharic, which is the mother tongue of neither the Nuers, nor the Agnuaks, is the working language of the State.

Historically, Gambella is a region prone to ethnic conflicts. The 2003 unprecedented massacre of more than 400 Agnuaks in the hands of government security forces and ‘highlanders’, according to the HRW, left Gambella stuck in crisis watch list of several international organizations including the United Nations.

What happened at the end of January 2016 can therefore be easily taken for the usual sporadic skirmishes between the two dominant ethnic groups; it involved both and covered vast areas in the region, touching villages from Abobo to Itang, Gog to Jor, and a refugee camp in Pugindo, as well as a prison cell in the capital, Gamebella town. By the government’s account 14 people, including Gatdet Gony, Deputy Head of the Transport and Road Development Office, were killed in the clash. Several other accounts put the number as high as 50.

The federal government quickly dismissed the cause as a simple confrontation between two men from both tribes, but the cumulative fear by the Agnuaks about the Nuer’s political dominance (which is often alleged to be supported by the federal government) and near absolute control over resources by the Nuer plays a significant role in instigating these conflicts.

Gambella’s small nuisances 

While the rest of Ethiopia was welcoming the Ethiopian New Year of 2007 on Sept 11, 2014 with jubilant festivities, Meti, a small town in Godere District in Mezhenger Zone of Gambella was struggling to contain a chaos that besieged the villagers. Around 8 AM that morning a group of men broke into a prison located in Kebele 01 and released several inmates who then went door to door to residences of the ethnic Mezhengers, killing many including women and children, according to charges brought against the perpetrators.

The Mezhenger consider people who came from various parts of the country, mostly from the highland areas of the North and Central Ethiopia and had settled there as ‘highlanders.’ Some of these ‘highlanders’ had lived in the district for decades.

Although the flare ups of many of these conflicts always come in the form of petty individual confrontations between the ethnic Mezhengers and these ‘highlanders’, the fundamental problem is one that Ethiopia’s two decades old constitutional federal dispensation failed to address effectively.

The Mezhenger zone is one of the three zones in Gambella bordering in its southeastern part the Sheka and Bench Maji zones of SNNPR, as well as the Agnuak of Gambella and Illubabor of Oromiya to the north. Endowed with abundant natural resources it is a region where the long arms of the federal government easily tampers with. The area is home to large scale tea plantations owned by foreign companies and fertile lands contracted to both local and foreign companies without much say from the Gambella regional state.

A recent report by Fortune newspaper, a private weekly, revealed that “Nearly 100 commercial farming investors in Gambella are losing thousands of hectares of land because the region leased by mistake lands under federal jurisdiction.” When asked to comment on the issue, Gatluak Tut Kon, president of the Gambella regional state, told the newspaper, “You should talk to the federal government. I wish to give no comment on the case.” For many who believed in the principles of constitutional federalism that Ethiopian officials claim to have instilled, this was no ordinary news headline.

Critics also lament that the demands of the Mezhenger people to want to forcefully evict “highlanders” from their native land comes from the insecurity of resource distribution and a sense of political exclusion. They were always Ethiopia’s marginalized periphery.

 Konso, Qucha, Wolkait, Qimant and all that demand

Following the creation by the SNNPR regional state of the Segen Area Peoples Zone in March 2011, the Konso community in the south was staging peaceful protests for the last 10 months. The Konso people fear the creation of the new zone forces them to lose their “right to self-administration and their right to advance their culture, language and national identity, enshrined in the constitution.”

The response from the regional government was similar to the response the federal government often avails to contain similar demands elsewhere: deploying the region’s Special Forces who asnwered the community’s constitutionally legitimate demands with violence.

Although to a lesser extent, the Qucha people, who also reside in the SNNPR regional state, are demanding a similar question: the right to self-administration. Forty elected representatives of the community have come to Addis Abeba at the end of 2014 and have raised the question of national identity and self-rule with the House of Federation.

In the north of Ethiopia the Qimant people in the Amhara regional state, north of Gondar, also demand what the Konsos and Quchas were demanding for years. A recent conflict that flared up in Nov. 2015 between the Qimant people and the regional administration is believed to have resulted in the death of several community members of the Qimant people.

However, contrary to the people of Konso and Qucha, (and rather uncharacteristic of the regime), the Qimant peoples’ demand for self-administration was addressed in March 2015 when the Amhara Regional state granted them a status of nationality and ruled that they can exercise self-administration. According to the ruling, the Qimant have a right for self-administration in 42 Kebeles in the adjacent Armachiho and Chilga Districts. They can also enjoy the full rights of developing their language as well as their culture.

In north western Ethiopia, the simmering question of national identity by the Wolkayit community has recently reached a new peak. In what’s largely believed to be a forceful decision by the federal government, the Wolkayit people are to stay under the Humera Zone of the Tigray regional state. It is a decision that quashed the community’s two decades old demand to join the Amhara regional state, as they identify themselves as Amharas. A few weeks into the protest the people of Wolkayit were paraded in front of the national TV carrying placards that declared all their questions, including their questions of identity, as have been answered once and for all.

But as the bumpy road continues to stretch from the North to the South to the West (and seem to grow by frequency as well as magnitude) the first – and perhaps most uncomfortable – step would be to probe if Ethiopia, where the concept of “unity in diversity” avails itself for all to indulge on an equal footing, was ever born in the first place.

Worry or not worry?

Ezekiel Gebissa, a Professor of History and African Studies at Kettering University, argues that the constitutional federalism the incumbent introduced doesn’t originally belong to it; it dates back to “the Ethiopian student movement” of the early seventies.

Prof. Ezekiel Gebissa

At the pinnacle of the student movement the question of national identity took center stage, especially among the movement’s leaders such as Walelign Mekonnen.  Walelign’s prescription of self-administration up to secession for the politically marginalized became the rallying factor for the would-be guerrilla fighters, who later defeated the Marxist Derg regime, Prof. Ezekiel explains.

Although the Derge tried self-administration based on different regions called ‘autonomous provinces’, it was a system that didn’t save the center from an eventual collapse. With the coming to power in 1991 of the ruling EPRDF, therefore, having constitutional federalism was not an option but a necessity, according to Ezekiel.

Tamrat Kebede, Executive Director of InterAfrica Group, a think tank, agrees.  In addition, he sees the country’s journey from an absolute monarchy through military dictatorship to a constitutional federalism as “a quantum jump”. He believes that with the coming into power of the EPRDF questions of national identity and self-determination were put to the test for the first time. Himself a former member of the seventies’ student movement, Tamrat argues that as much as the questions were debated and discussed, the approach was purely theoretical.

Tamrat Kebede

Both Tamrat and Ezekiel find the government’s claims that the current constitutional federalism has answered Ethiopia’s age-old questions as exaggerated.

A careful look at the lingering cases of the Konso, Qucha, Wolkait and Qimant reveal the uncanny similarity each community’s approaches share to put their constitutionally guaranteed demands to the attention of the federal government; they all invoked legal mechanisms enshrined in the structures of the constitutional federalism. “The skeleton of the structure is in place. But putting it into policy is one thing, implementing it is another,” Ezekiel says.

When the Konso people began to protest the demotion of their administrative area from the status of Special District to a mere District, they formed a representative committee to advance their demand for self-administration and managed to collect signatures from more than 5% of the community, well above the constitution’s requirement. The committee then appealed to the Federal House of Federation here in Addis Abeba but the House sent the people (and their questions) back to the regional government.

Similarly the Qucha people, who are currently administered under the Gamo Gofa zone of the SNNPR, say that they are not ethnic Gamos, as the current arrangement dictates; they are their own nationality – Qucha. Qucha District, which is home to the Qucha people, has close to 150, 000 people, according to the 2007 national census.

And a committee gathered to address the question by the Wolkait people has written a letter on December 2015 to the House of Federation demanding proper response to their question of identity. The committee says that the Wolkait’s right to work and learn in their own language as well as their right to promote and advance their culture have been suppressed in the past, including the 20 plus years of the rule by the EPRDF.

But these glitches do not make Tamrat of InterAfrica Group lose faith in the constitutional federalism Ethiopia is following. In his interview with this magazine Tamrat says practicing a complex federal system such as that of Ethiopia’s will “inevitably run into enormous constraints and challenges.” “[such a system] entails decentralization; it is sensitive; it requires capacity, both in human terms and resource terms, which are not all readily available when you launch into such a complex arrangement,” Tamrat said.

Prof Ezekiel shares Tamrat’s view: adjusting the system itself as needed, “requires a careful, thoughtful, deeply concerned implementation” he says. But Ezekiel is critical because that never happened in the last two decades. “The question that brought the very existence of Ethiopia into a country was never fully answered”.

The reason for this, according to Ezekiel, lies in the undemocratic nature of the incumbent. Once in power the EPRDF “thought that they could do whatever they want; they could engineer any outcome; they could muzzle dissent; they could decimate opposition and tell the politically marginalized nationalities on the highland and on the lowland that ‘you have a constitution, your questions have been answered and you have no other question’”.

He believes that the questions raised now in different parts of the country are indeed not “new questions”. “They are the same questions” he told this magazine. However he doesn’t “believe for one minute that questioning the very foundation of the federal arrangement is the answer. It is whether it should be implemented or not.”

Darkness before dawn?

Analysts who follow Ethiopia closely argue that recent incidents happening in all corners of the country: the demands for economic justice, self-administration and national identity are symptoms of a disease far deeper than the current government dares to admit. Tamrat is one of them.

“These signs should force us to question what it is that we are not doing right,” he says, “or why is this structure we have created to precisely avoid these kinds of problems creating these problems? Could it be that we issued rights that are not being exercised? Have we not prepared ourselves for the manner in which they are to be exercised? That could very well be,” he says.

For him the recognitions of the identity and equality of nationalities as well as the rights to exercise self-administration up to the level of secession manifests “strong rights which demand fair resource sharing, fair political participatory process, needless to say a democratic culture, in the absence of [which] they are bound to erupt.”

Ethiopians’ questions of national identity and the demand for self-rule are re-emerging frequently because they have never been answered in the right way, argues Ezekiel. “Ethiopia is still a one party state” in which not only its marginalized but also a great many are simply excluded from the political process.  And it is not just a theoretical exclusion, he said, “it is a totalitarian control of the assets of the state to give permanency to the exclusionary politics that the regime has put in place.”

The ruling party, Ezekiel further said, “uses the state resources to co-opt the military, the security apparatus and the business class” to “create a total hegemony of structure and discourse” and to “emasculate the very constitution it celebrates.”  The ruling party also puts an executive manned by “ill-educated party cadres that simply parrot the leaders’ pronouncements without any understanding of the complexities of implementing [federalism] policies.” The trajectory of this direction is one that’s “leading to calamity.”

Ezekiel believes that the disastrous handling by the federal government of almost all of these incidents (such as disarming regional police, intervention without due parliamentary process, committing crimes with an absolute sense of impunity and several other signs showing excessive control of the federal government against these national regional states) show that the party that likes to take total credit for creating Ethiopia’s constitutional federalism is becoming the system’s enemy number one.

Tamrat too shares Ezekiel’s concerns. The government’s ways of handling public resentments, which include the application of excessive force, does not manifest proper and competent handlings.

Campaigners and activists say the recent widespread public protest in Oromiya, which saw the federal army being quickly deployed, left more than 400 killed, twice that number injured, and thousands incarcerated. The federal army roamed many of the streets where protests broke out; and the whereabouts of hundreds of people remains unknown.

Members of the Konso community said that several of their people, including their leader, are incarcerated or have unjustly lost their jobs following their demand for self-rule, although many of them were released since the writing of this story.

According to a December 2015 letter addressed to the House of Federation by a committee gathered to discuss the question of the Wolkait people, there were about 116 people whose whereabouts were unknown because they raised “a question of identity.”

Going to the Qucha community in the South, in January 2015 the Gamo Area High Court has sentenced 27 members of the community to up to 16 years imprisonment for allegedly instigating violence and causing damage on people and properties fourteen months earlier. According to the charges presented against them, they were trying to operate illegally to forcefully obtain a status of nationality for the Qucha community. And to advance their cause, the charges add, they attacked residences of Kebele officials.

For Tamrat, some of the challenges the country is struggling with currently require an expanded political space, “to be debated, to be discussed, to [bring forth] appropriate responses. I see a deficit in that regard,” he says.

The government’s dogmatic obsession with the constitution is another “often overlooked” aspect for Tamrat. For the incumbent, the Constitution is non-debatable, fixed entity, probably because it mistakenly equates “the Constitution for law and order. So whenever it says the constitution [is beyond any discussion], it is actually saying that law and order are [beyond any discussion].”

Yet, the Constitution is an embodiment of a document that entails the compromise of different views and it is not static, argues Tamrat; it could be and should be amended when issues demand so. In fact “there is a provision that stipulates its own amendment” because amendment was “an envisaged process.” Article 104 clearly states the legality of “initiation of Amendments.”

“Any proposal for constitutional amendment, if supported by two-thirds majority vote in the House of Peoples’ Representatives, or by a two-thirds majority vote in the House of the Federation or when one-third of the State Councils of the member States of the Federation (by a majority vote in each Council) have supported it, shall be submitted for discussion and decision to the general public and to those whom the amendment of the Constitution concerns,” the Article reads.

A change towards democracy is a must if the country is to avoid regrettable tragedy, Ezekiel says. “People at the top of the government must know that the status quo is not sustainable”, he argues, “because there is too much discontent, too much dissatisfaction, a lot of desperation, a lot of deprivation,” Ezekiel said, adding that the government must stop listening to the reverberation of its own voices and understand that this is not a sustainable path.

“It should begin by decriminalizing dissent, open up the political space, expunge the draconian laws that are muzzling the press, start from the freedom of the press, release political prisoners. These are the measures the government could take in order to win the good will of the public,” Ezekiel said. “This is not an option, this is an imperative. The window will close sooner or later. But, would the government be able to see that? Well, I always say absolute power dements more than it corrupts.”

No turning back

Several Ethiopian critics of the government assert that the fundamental problem of the recent conflicts that besieged several areas is the constitutional federalism itself. According to these critics, it focuses more on differences than unity. Some fear it may even lead to an eventual disintegration of the country. A return to the old unitary system of administration is an idea whose appeal seems to gain increasing popularity among many Ethiopians. But it is an idea both Tamrat and Ezekiel strongly disagree with.

“The [current] federal arrangement was a response to a historic question of nationalities,” Ezekiel says, “to deny that there is a question of nationalities is to deny the sun rises in the East.” The country, according to him, has tried the unitarists as well as the assimilationists track for decades and it actually led to “proliferation of centrifugal forces”. Thus, “the claim that says we need a unitary state is a flight of fancy that collides with reality.”

Tamrat adds “a unitary government has not yielded the desired, harmonious and peaceful relationship. We can’t go back to a unitary system that’s held by force. We have travelled enough distance in this federal system in which national senses of identities have taken a right recognition and it is this right recognition which is manifesting itself as demands of right.”

But back in the power corridors of the government in Ethiopia exhausting propaganda is being relentlessly produced and aired through state affiliated media claiming that the federal arrangement not only answered the ‘national question’ but also put the burning question of land ownership, and the nation’s quest for self-rule, which saw the previous two regimes toppled by the will of the people, to their final resting place.

But to put Ezekiel’s words in this context, this one too seems “a flight of fancy that collides with reality.”

5-7-2016

The ideological aspect of China’s engagement in Africa has always been an intriguing topic for observers. There is a history to it. During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government spent great efforts and resources on “exporting revolution” (communism and revolutionary war) to developing countries, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. Since the reform and opening up, China gradually abandoned the ideology-driven foreign policy. However, with China’s more recent rise, what has emerged instead is the so-called “China model” featuring authoritarian capitalism. China is actively promoting this new model of China’s political and economic development in Africa through political party training programs, which constitute a key component of Chinese foreign policy toward Africa.

The political party training programs’ goal is to educate African political parties on China’s experience in economic development and political governance. They almost universally include three basic components. These are 1) lectures at a Chinese education or training institution, 2) field trips to a local government for first-hand experience and meetings with local officials, farmers, and businesses, and 3) cultural programs to familiarize participants with Chinese traditional culture. Not all training programs take place in Beijing. In fact, only the most senior-level ones are hosted in Beijing, and the more common programs for mid- to low-level African officials are placed in local Chinese cities.

Ethiopia: China’s most “eager” student

Indeed, Ethiopia has been the most eager student of China’s development and government experience. The ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), first sent a senior delegation to Beijing in 1994 for “China’s advice on Ethiopia’s development.” After being convinced that China’s model was successful, Ethiopia became rather insistent on learning of China’s experiences and combining them with the Ethiopian local conditions. As a result, training programs soared. Senior EPRDF training delegations were dispatched to Beijing regularly. The June 2011 delegation focused on poverty alleviation. The August 2013 delegation focused on cadre management. The most recent one, in February 2016, focused on domestic development, especially on how to manage youth. Due to these collaborations, Chinese scholars and media regard Ethiopia as the biggest success of the China model in Africa. Ethiopia’s policy on foreign investment and special economic zones as well as its focus on infrastructure development are often attributed to Chinese enlightenment.

Through training and exchanges, China also contributed significantly to the EPRDF’s political development and capacity building. EPRDF’s cadre training system has learned and imitated many aspects of Chinese Communist Party’s setups.  Its Central Party School and party cadre education system owes its success to a 2011 training program by the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. During the program, the Ethiopian party cadres were taught comprehensively how to manage their own organizational structure, ideological work, propaganda system, cadre education, and relations between the central-local relations within the party.

Given the similar non-democratic nature of their domestic politics, the Chinese Communist Party has many lessons, experiences, and advice to offer the EPRDF. One example is on how to manage the media, public opinion, and criticism/opposition of the party, areas in which the Chinese Communist Party takes great pride. In a training program last year, a senior study group from the EPRDF was educated on how the Chinese government monitors, guides, and manages public opinion, including the organizational setup, technologies used, legislation passed, and relations with the media.

China’s political party training programs extend beyond Ethiopia

In other cases, African political parties’ training programs in China focus less on authoritarian aspects of governance, but more on the capacity and the development of political parties themselves. In the past five years, this type of training program has been conducted for National Congress Party of Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement of South Sudan, the South West African People’s Organization of Namibia, and the Communist Party of South Africa. South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) and the Chinese Communist Party signed a memorandum of understanding in 2008 on China’s enhanced efforts to train ANC members in China. Senior ANC training delegations have been dispatched to China regularly since then: Between 2008 and 2012, four batches of 56 members of the political party’s National Executive Committee visited China for training on the “theories and practice of the ruling parties in China and in South Africa.” A senior training delegation to China in December 2015 studied the organizational development of the Chinese Communist Party on the grass-roots level and how the local party organs implement the decisions and policies by the Central Committee.

Understanding the democratization and multiparty system in African countries, China’s political party training programs target not only the ruling parties, but the opposition parties too. For example, as noted above, China provides training to the Communist Party of South Africa and the ANC. In September 2013, Party Secretary General Blade Nzimande led a senior cadre training delegation to China to study issues of “socialism theories and practices.”Interestingly, efforts seem to be made to balance the training for ruling parties and opposition parties. In December 2015, the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China invited an ANC training delegation led by ANC’s chief treasurer; six months later a similar 10-day training was conducted for the Communist Party of South Africa, this time led by the Communist Party’s chief treasurer.

China’s systematic approach also extends to future African political leaders. Younger generation elites receive special attention and resources for training from the Chinese government. These training programs are designed for government officials or political party members under the director levels and under the age of 40. This category has been growing particularly fast. Between 2011 and 2015, through the African Political Party Leaders training program under the Sino-Africa Young Political Leaders Forum, China trained more than 200 African young political leaders. Just last year, when China announced a major plan to invite 1000 such young leaders to China for training before March 2018, greatly boosting the scale and scope of the project.

Is China teaching ideology, offering opinions, or just sharing experiences?

Whether the China model constitutes an ideology is debatable. After all, China itself is still exploring and theorizing its own economic and political models, so there is not necessarily a mature, comprehensive ideology that China is pushing or exporting. However, China does seek to promote the Chinese experience in governance and development in African countries. Party-to-party exchanges and political party training programs have been the key venue for this ideological agenda.

China states that the training programs are strictly exchanges of opinions rather than an imposition of the China model on African countries. In other words, China invites African political party cadres to China to study the Chinese way of governance on issues they are interested in, but whether they eventually adopt the Chinese way is purely at their own discretion. This approach does constitute capacity building, but is perhaps less dictatorial compared to Western capacity-building programs in that China does not assume their experience represents the “ultimate truth.”

China actively pushes African political party members to personally experience China’s economic success and systematically train them on China’s paths to such a success. The conscious pursuit of the demonstration effect and efforts to help African political parties to absorb, assimilate, and duplicate the Chinese experience do constitute a different type of ideological push. It is geographically expansive, institutionally systematic, and will have a profound psychological and political impact over the choices and preferences of African political parties, thus over African political landscape.

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  Yun Sun

  Nonresident Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Africa Growth Initiative

  Yun Sun is a nonresident fellow in the Africa Growth Initiative, focusing on China’s relations with Africa and U.S.-China cooperation on the continent.