By Ethiopundit

The voices of the Western world concerned with human rights routinely make clear that Ethiopia’s government is one of the most oppressive on earth. From sources as varied in perspective and interest as the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report and that of Human Rights Watch World Report that is the case.

Private organs like HRW do so, often with passion, in keeping with their mission but have little power. Public organs like State do so, usually with a sense of boredom at having to bother, and fail to exercise any power. However, as HRW says about the European Union’s reaction to the closing of the sole independent, though largely symbolic, sources of civil power in the country, the Western world provides not tacit but overt support for Ethiopian suffering:

“The EU should have condemned one of world’s worst laws on NGOs. Instead, it gave Ethiopia €250 million.

On 30 January, European Union policymakers sent a clear signal to Ethiopia: no matter how repressive the government becomes, vast sums of aid will continue to flow. This is emerging as a case study in bad donor policy.”

HRW has it wrong though. This is not an emerging case study of bad donor policy – this has been Western policy since 1991 when Meles Inc. took power. The basic approach was originally one of welcoming ‘anyone but Mengistu’ but over time that matured to a further embrace of low expectations.

For Europeans that became appreciating in Meles ‘an African we can deal with’ and for Americans seeing in him ‘our man in Africa’. Of course, seeming to be of use can cause many sins to be forgiven but even as reports and accounts of endemic human rights violations pile up the dictator’s words are accepted at face value. Meles is rewarded with status at G-8 summits and more importantly billions in unaccounted for aid that secure him in power and fill his personal coffers.

If not low expectations how else to explain a government with no basic institutions of civil society, not to mention democratic society, being so tolerated? There is a parliament, courts, elections, election board, etc. that only exist to give a patina of respectability to a government of thugs. None of those institutions matter – Meles makes decisions in concert with his slavish revolutionary nobility. Yet Meles’s words are heard as though they originated from any civilized process recognizable to any democrat – and Western governments eat it up.

The issue of bad donor policy extends beyond human rights to the intimately related sphere of economics. Ethiopia is one of the most desperately poor nations on earth with little prospect of improvement given the absence of every factor that made the West rich and so much else of humanity escape suffering as a tradition. Ethiopia has also, not by coincidence, one of the most corrupt governments on earth.

There is no right to own private property in Ethiopia – the people meaning the government meaning ultimately Meles own all of the land. The whole economy at every level from the debt bondage of fertilizer sales to poor farmers, local grain markets and all aid grain distribution, import-export businesses, agribusiness, construction, road building, to the absurdity of the commodities exchange are all united grasping tentacles of Meles Inc.

Every one concerned knows that no economy on earth has ever developed under those circumstances – yet the game goes on of pretending to believe what Meles says about democracy or economic growth. So far apart from Ethiopians who are on occasion heard because the West can’t pretend to ignore them any longer and apart from the support of friends of Ethiopia in places such as the US Legislature and the EU Parliament – the consequences of Western policy to Ethiopia are ignored.

This is not a ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ issue or one that finally demands that ‘Ethiopians finally get their act together’. The West has made itself an active partner in support of Ethiopia’s dictatorship. As we have so often said before the Ethiopian Civil Contract is between Meles and Western governments. Ethiopians are just spectators and hostages.

You see the West occasionally threatens and begs Meles to treat Ethiopians better (at least those known to them and those withing sight of Embassies). Meles only pretends to do so and when that does not work only has to renew his eternal threat to drag tens of millions of them even further down into the depravity of his own reality before the West gets back in line.

All of the give and take is between Meles and Westerners. Ethiopians are bit players in the drama. But … the only semi-civilized actor who may even consider the interests of Ethiopians are Westerners. Ethiopians have nowhere else to turn for help. They can only appeal to the better natures of Meles’s partners in crime in Washington and Brussels because Meles is the murderous, bratty, viceroy of the West in every way possible.

So how can the West take responsibility for its own actions and serve its own interests? The struggle against Islamic Fascism puts Western Strategic Dilemma in Eastern African into stark relief. The foreign policy of every country is based on self interest. Self interest and projections of self interest over time can combine with occasional frank altruism to bring about policy beneficial to countries like Ethiopia. Why not?

The donor nations seem to be in the process of making decisions for the future that are no longer based on wishful thinking about personalities and rhetoric. It is valuable to examine a similar situation in recent history for instruction. Once again we will ask our readers to take part in a familiar thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine Ethiopia’s revolutionary nobility and its ruler were White and and not Black.

Especially given the foundation of the Ethiopian government de facto and de jure on ethnic / regional divide and rule where one’s tribe defines how anyone participates in society – very naturally one would make a comparison to Apartheid era South Africa or a nation fallen victim to colonialism long past its expiration date. Blacks in Apartheid era South Africa had far more political and economic rights than Ethiopians do today.

When White Africans mistreat Black Africans it seemed to matter quite a bit but when Black Africans mistreat other Black Africans that is accepted as a part of the world’s natural order. Indeed, the West is willing to finance the latter evil with no questions asked. The comparison to Apartheid era South Africa is apt. Wonder along with us why any dictator should be given credit just for looking like his victims?

There has long been an assumption that Bush was a key Meles ally solely because of the War on Terror and that the end of the Bush Presidency would mean more responsible Western policy towards Ethiopia. According to one senior State Department official quoted by HRW in 2003

“Ethiopia’s human rights record is ‘not a factor’ in the bilateral relationship.”

But … how about Clinton before Bush and his just as close alliance with Meles? Obama’s Secretary of State was decidedly not ushering in a new era of respect for human rights when she said of China’s dictators that

“We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”

That is diplo-speak for beat on the Chinese as long and as hard as you like. It is hard to think that where there are security interests to be pursued that Ethiopian suffering is going to count for more than the Chinese variety where there are financial interests to be considered. From China to Ethiopia the general Western attitude is wrongheaded and ultimately harmful to the West. But those facts are either not appreciated or at best they are simply inconvenient.

In this post we will explore the nature of the Western Strategic Dilemma in Ethiopia and explore how it can be dealt with while keeping the West firmly on the side of basic morality and civilization – while serving Western interests too.