Oromo Democratic Front (ODF) Declares Commitment to Work with Others towards a Democratic, Multi-national Ethiopia:
Is this the Same New Ethiopia We in the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) Envision?
April 6, 2013
On March 30, 2013 I had the privilege of watching history in progress while attending the first meeting of the newly formed Oromo Democratic Front (ODF) as an observer. Those involved included most of the founding leaders of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). As they announced their new vision, direction and organization to more than 500 people attending the meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, I was deeply struck with the vastly different message I was hearing that day—calling Oromo to work together for one Ethiopia—from what I had heard at their 2006 OLF meeting where their secessionist goals and strictly Oromo agenda dominated every aim. I can only think that this transformation has been brought about by a renewed hope among its leadership that the great people of Oromia can contribute to the creation of an Ethiopia for all its precious people.
I believe the ODF, and its new vision, could be part of the answer to the serious division among the Ethiopian opposition groups. This is a good beginning and worth applauding. During the meeting, ODF leadership clearly explained their objectives as advocates not only for the Oromo, but also for the “freedom and justice for all individuals and nations.” They explained that the change in focus was “motivated by the universal principle that struggling for justice for oneself alone without advocating justice for all could ultimately prove futile because ‘“injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”’
I do believe it is legitimate to protect the rights of your own ethnic people; exposing injustices and working towards the resolution of these grievances, especially in a country where no one speaks on behalf of others; however, we will know we have a much healthier society when we advocate for the rights of others and readily correct wrongs. These others can be from tiny subgroups of people or from large majority groups. They can be fellow members of our society that agree with us or those who dispute our positions. In a free society, those unlike us still deserve respect and equal rights. This is why it was so gratifying to hear Oromo leaders say they will not be speaking only for Oromo, but for everybody; and that from here on, the ODF will be a body that will work with others to bring lasting change to all Ethiopians.
Some in the audience challenged this new position. One man summed up the opinion of a number of attendees as they sought to better understand the change of direction. The man asked, “For the last 40 years, we’ve been told that Ethiopians in power were colonizers and imperialists and we have been dreaming about having our own country, but now you are saying we can work from within? Why the change the course we have been on?”
One of the leaders, Mr. Leenco Lata, respectfully explained, “I cannot preach what is unachievable. It cannot work in Ethiopia. If Oromia was to become a country, the entire region would be in chaos. Oromia is everywhere. What are you going to do with Gambella, Southern Nations and Benishangul?
It will be best to fix the country from within so we all have a democratic country in which to live. The Oromo don’t have to think like we are a victim or act like we are a minority. We are not a minority but a majority. We will not forget the historical chapter, but we have to start a new chapter where we work together with everybody to create an Ethiopia for everybody.”
Mr. Leenco explained to the audience that all Oromo might not be convinced of the need to change directions, but that the leadership planned on talking with those holding different opinions in order to hopefully convince them to come on board. If convinced, they could go forward to start reaching out to other Ethiopian groups with the goal of coming together so all stakeholders could be party to formulating a plan that would work for everyone.
Another leader Mr. Dima, explained that in the previous Ethiopia, as well as under the TPLF/EPRDF, one group defined the direction of the country for everyone else and that this was wrong. He called the EPRDF a façade because although it is a large group of people that pretended to be for everyone, others outside the TPLF were never consulted. He said that Ethiopians should not make the same mistake, but instead must reach out to stakeholders so all could be involved in forming a plan as to how to bring about a more democratic Ethiopia for everybody. He emphasized the need to gain the consensus of the people to form a movement from within the country—not from a neighboring or other country—which would bring the heart of the struggle to Ethiopia so that change could come from within.
Following the presentation, I came forward to give a response during the question and answer period. I enthusiastically complimented the leadership who were presenting this new direction as well as the way the entire discussion was conducted. The leadership and the public had shown real respect towards each other even as questions were asked, positions challenged and explanations given. It was very encouraging. I wish I could have understood the language, (Afaan Oromo/Oromiffa) but thankfully, I found an Oromo brother from Melbourne, Australia who translated the entire discussion for me.
I told them what began there in this room as a dialogue should be demonstrated in action by talking with others. Other groups should follow suit—regional groups, women, religious groups and youth representing diverse groups. The time to start talking is long overdue no one should wait for an invitation. Be the one to start the conversation. For example, even though I was invited to this meeting; even without an invitation I still would have come had it been possible because this was such an important meeting. Its outcome would affect me as an Ethiopian. I called on them to think out of the box; realizing no one has to stay in their ethnic enclaves. I encouraged them to not wait for an invitation to enter the discussion.
I suggested, “The next step would be to have a workshop—a national level dialogue—where representatives from different groups could carry on a dialogue. Those speaking from the podium should share the same stage. Let the people have a debate where disagreements can be respectfully voiced, like what just took place at this meeting. This is something the SMNE and others willing to work in collaboration, like the ODF, can pursue.”
As the ODF leaders continue to meet with others to explain their new direction, they are well aware that there may be skeptics among the public or those among the Oromo who do not agree with them; however, as this new vision is practically enacted, it can become a model for other ethnic-based groups, also struggling for freedom and justice, who might be willing to join together if they had a voice.
When this happens, a New Ethiopia for all Ethiopians will be the mindset of a country that, with God’s help, will mobilize an inclusive peoples’ movement. This also means that ethnic-based groups will become civic groups rather than political parties, competing for dominance against other ethnic groups.
Freedom and justice can never be accomplished through one ethnic group, even a large one. Neither can it be achieved through multiple factions working on their own goals, independent of others. Instead, meaningful change will require the improved collaboration between the many diverse groups seeking an inclusive democratic state. Even though we are diverse people, we Ethiopians have more in common than our differences. Not only do we share the land, we share the same blood through our ancestors who have lived in this land for millenniums. The diversity of Ethiopians in terms of ethnicity, culture, language, history, religion and language is what I call the garden of Ethiopia and what we hold in common is a desire for one healthy family of Ethiopians.
THE TPLF/EPRDF and other narrow-minded, ethnic-centered politicians have tried to overlook the value of all the people of Ethiopia, whether intentionally, for their own self-interests, or because they feared there was no future for them unless they were in power; however the world is changing. People are able to come together in ways never before possible. Improved technology and communication help, but collaboration, undergirded with respect towards others, brings about a better outcome, greater harmony and more sustainable relationships.
The TPLF/EPRDF’s whole system of ethnic-based hegemony cannot survive when groups such as the ODF refuse to play by those rules any longer. The TPLF/EPRDF’s apartheid model is dependent on division, suspicion and tribal competition and it will take a blow as the Oromo, Amhara, Ogadeni and other Ethiopians begin to advocate for the rights of the other. The people of Gambella as well as the people of Afar are said to be holding dialogues within their own communities regarding similar initiatives to advocate for the rights and inclusion of all Ethiopians, including the minorities and marginalized. This is a movement of thought and it now includes many in the Ethiopian religious communities.
Diverse religious groups have been the target of regime control for years, but now there are strong indicators that the TPLF/EPRDF’s control is faltering. Muslims are joining together with Christians to find a way to work together for the common good. This includes freedom of religion and expression for all Ethiopians. Civic organizations are also trying to create bonds with each other to advance shared goals. These developments should be a strong sign to regime power-holders that change is coming. The TPLF/EPRDF supporters are indeed on the wrong side unless they join with others in the transformation of Ethiopia into a “genuinely democratic multinational federation” that the ODF is talking about.
This new ODF initiative is what was envisioned four years ago when the SMNE was established. Our history of having an Ethiopia for only one or a few tribes—while all the rest struggle—must be ended. The only Ethiopia that will bring sustainable peace and prosperity is one where the humanity of each and every person, regardless of any differences, is not only valued, but also cared for, nurtured and protected. One’s own freedom, justice and empowerment are only sustainable when the same is given to others for“no one is free until all are free.”
The widespread application of these principles will make Ethiopia a home rather than the prison described by the ODF that makes us hunger for personal and collective freedom. Lasting change requires much dialogue, acknowledging the grievances of other people, the restoration of justice, the empowerment of our citizens at every level and reconciliation. Our goal is not to defeat, crush or root out the enemy as was said during the Dergue, but we must work to find ways to transform our country.
Through such dialogue we can talk about why the majority of various ethnic groups will not end up having their particular language as one of the national languages of the country because we have over 80 different languages. In the case of the Oromo language, it makes strong sense that it becomes a second national language because forty million of our people speak it. English may become another of its languages. There are examples of some countries functioning well with more than one language, like Canada or Switzerland; however, it is important to keep in mind that language is meant to be an instrument to advance communication. Through dialogue we can find ways to figure this all out, including how to bring new inclusion to the minorities and to the marginalized—like Ethiopian women, the disabled, the uneducated and others whose voices must be included.
With respectful dialogue, we can find workable solutions to our differences and grievances rather than dividing the country or seeing other people as our enemies. This is the time to talk to each other rather than talking about each other. In the last 20 years the only thing we have done, which was also advanced by the TPLF/EPRDF, was for some Oromo to talk about the Amhara and what they have done and for some Amhara to talk about the Oromo, decrying them as refusing to let go of what Menelik had done to them. In other cases, some Ethiopians do not openly say it, but they discriminate against some they do not consider to be “real Ethiopians” by not giving them opportunity. The people of the Omo Valley are good examples of that discrimination. Fortunately, more of us are realizing that there is no 99% Ethiopian; but instead that every one of us is fully Ethiopian.
We also must realize that there is no ethnic group that cannot claim being oppressed at some time; however, the name “Ethiopia” and the flag of Ethiopia have never oppressed the people. It has been the few elite in power and the dictatorial systems they set up which have oppressed us. There is no “us” and “them” in this land for we are one people. There is no need to separate the country when we can solve our differences through a genuine dialogue. The ODF are now promising to do this.
From the very beginning, the SMNE has always sought to work with anyone and any group who honestly was willing to advance the betterment of humanity rather than using these principles disingenuously while holding onto a hidden agenda. As the ODF begins to advocate for all Ethiopians, they are “putting humanity before ethnicity” and endorsing the belief that sustainable freedom will never come to the Oromo until it comes to all Ethiopians. I enthusiastically commend them on a job well done and look forward to the fruit of this contribution. We in the SMNE will do whatever we can to work with them and hope that others, including the TPLF, will come to the realization that this is the only way forward that gives us all a future.
To accomplish these goals, we must acknowledge the historical past with its injustice towards different groups of people, but we must also look forward to building a better future. We should also be willing to give up something for a bigger cause.
There is a price to be paid for a better future. It will cost us something which may include forgiveness, humility, compromise, and putting behind us some of our past grievances.
The Ethiopia we have now is not good for anyone; for example: the unemployment, the locking up of Oromo and many others, the displacement of the people like the Amhara and others from their land, the outflow of Ethiopian women to the Middle East as maids, the lack of a future with hope in Ethiopia which should make us think about why we are choosing to work as factions rather than together.We must ask why we are settling for so little when we could collaborate by doing our share rather than giving the burden to only a few. Together we could create a better country—more unified than divided, more livable than inhospitable and more caring about others than selfish about our own interests.
If each of us really took the initiative and was willing to commit to doing our share, we could be able to create a better Ethiopia rather than a beggar Ethiopia. Imagine if the two major ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, would stand together as one people for the future of all of us! Imagine if the Ethiopian youth saw themselves as human beings first rather than as a tribe and could stand together as future leaders of one Ethiopia rather than as one tribe making Ethiopia their own playground for their own tribal interests. Imagine all the Ethiopian women reconciling and working together as mothers who do not favor one child over another.Imagine Ethiopia’s religious leaders, like the Ethiopian Orthodox, the Evangelical Christians, the Ethiopian Muslims, Ethiopian Jews, animists and non-believers coming together as people of moral character to promote love, compassion, peace, honesty, integrity, good relations and respect for freedom and justice.
The evidence that the ODF and others are genuine will be seen in how they embrace others. Imagine an Oromo speaking up on behalf of the displaced Amhara, condemning it. Imagine an Amhara speaking up on behalf of the Oromo who have been unjustly imprisoned just for being Oromo. Imagine a Christian condemning the mistreatment of the Muslim. Imagine the Muslim doing the same thing on behalf of the Christians. Imagine if every group did this for others. Who would not want to live in such a country? This kind of Ethiopia would be much better than some of the countries where so many of our young people are running to in hopes of finding a better life, but too often are suffering or dying on the way.
The hope for a better future is within each of us. With God’s help, He can transform us and use us as tools to transform our country. It is a matter of putting these hopes and dreams into action. May God help more of us to realize, like the ODF, that we are one family, the Ethiopian family. May God help us not to be so judgmental and stubbornly fixed in our prejudices, but instead to open our hearts to accept each other; helping us to break down the barriers of suspicion that have kept us fighting each other and struggling to survive while a tiny minority has taken the power and are thriving at the expense of all of us.
May God help us to find a way to also embrace them, not excluding them either for they are a product of past mistakes and thinking. If they change, we need to accept them as well for no one is free until we all are free. May the God who loves each of us, help us to see the beauty He created in our Ethiopian brothers and sisters. ==============================
Please do not hesitate to e-mail your comments to Mr. Obang Metho, Executive Director of the SMNE at: [email protected].
Margaret J. O’Connor on lessons she learned growing up in Ethiopia — and from Martin Luther King Jr.’s death
April 3, 2013
Margaret J. O’Connor
You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I have two native countries — Ethiopia and Australia — and an adopted one, America. I was born and raised in Ethiopia, a daughter of Australian missionaries. We lived in a small village in the highlands of the Great Rift Valley. There, I grew up surrounded by love, gentleness and kindness — not only from my family, but from the Amhara and the Arusi-Galla tribal people among whom we lived. For me, color was never an issue. It was not black or white, but rather, friend or not.
In the village where I grew up, we were the only white children. When I was 3, my family was returning to Australia for a yearlong furlough, and another missionary family with three children was coming to take over my parent’s mission post. The children were near our ages, and when they asked my sisters and I to play with them, we were shy and ran off into the village to play with our friends.
That night, my mother asked me why I’d run away. I’d said, “Mummy, they’re so different than us.” I’d never seen another white child, except for my sisters. I didn’t grow up noticing color. That’s why I know that bigotry is learned. Hatred is learned. It’s something we teach our children.
In 1967, my family came to America — one of the most important events in my young life. I really believed the streets would be paved with gold. America was the land of plenty, the new “promised land,” one filled with opportunity, the best of the best. But within 10 months, everything changed forever for me.
Forty-five years ago today, and just a few short months after my family came to America, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. I was 12, and it had a profound effect on me.
I had never been exposed to such violence or such discrimination based solely on skin color. I asked my father why they would kill him, and I have never forgotten what he said to me: “He wanted to make the world a better place, but it’s not that way right now, and one day because of him, it might be.”
From Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, I learned about things I had never known: Bigotry and violence and hatred. But I also learned how far one man’s dream can take him, a people and a nation. I learned about the passion of conviction; that nonviolence and love can triumph over blind hate. I learned about a man who awoke a nation to racial injustice and the struggle for freedom. He stirred souls and people to action with his call for unity.
If, in 1960, someone had asked if a black man coming out of the South could champion a movement whose effect would be heard and felt around the world — and by a young strawberry blonde girl from Ethiopia — the answer would be an emphatic no. But Martin Luther King Jr. saw the oppression and despair of a people. He believed that change needed to occur, “but within the framework of the American democratic set-up … One of the greatest glories of American democracy is that we have the right to protest for rights.”
With that, he began to lay the groundwork for equality for all. He believed, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” and, “Today, the choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
Martin Luther King Jr. moved a nation toward his dream. His dream sustained a people and began to turn the tide away from apathy and ignorance. And he ultimately laid down his life for his fellow man, an act of “no greater love.”
His life has taught me that anything is possible, even if I am only one. He taught me that dreams, moral fiber, integrity and compassion are essential life characteristics. And he also reminded me of that essential lesson I learned as a young girl growing up in Ethiopia — that all people should be treated equally.
Open Hearings to Family, Independent Monitors, Media
By Human Rights Watch
April 2, 2013
(Nairobi) – The prosecution of 29 Muslim protest leaders and others charged under Ethiopia’s deeply flawed anti-terrorism law raises serious fair trial concerns. The trial is scheduled to resume in Addis Ababa on April 2, 2013, after a 40-day postponement.
The case has already had major due process problems. Some defendants have alleged ill-treatment in pre-trial detention. The government has provided defendants limited access to legal counsel and has taken actions that undermined their presumption of innocence. Since January 22 the High Court has closed the hearings to the public, including the media, diplomats, and family members of defendants.
“There seems to be no limit to the Ethiopian government’s use of its anti-terrorism law and unfair trials to stop peaceful dissent,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “The government’s treatment of these Muslim leaders bears the hallmarks of a politically motivated prosecution.”
The defendants include Muslim leaders and activists arrested and detained in July 2012 following six months of public protests in Addis Ababa and other towns by Ethiopia’s Muslim community over alleged government interference in religious affairs. Others on trial include Yusuf Getachew, former managing editor of the now defunct Islamic magazine Yemuslimoch Guday, and two Muslim nongovernmental organizations, allegedly managed by three of the defendants. Solomon Kebede was arrested and is being held under the anti-terrorism law.
According to official figures, Muslims make up approximately 30 percent of Ethiopia’s population. The protest movement began after the government insisted that the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs accept members from an Islamic sect known as al Ahbash and tried to impose its teachings on the Muslim community. The government also sought to influence the operations of the Awalia mosque in Addis Ababa.
In January 2012 the Muslim community created a committee to represent it in discussions with the government. Nine of the 17 members of this committee are among those on trial: Abubekar Ahmed, Ahmedin Jebel, Ahmed Mustafa, Kamil Shemsu, Jemal Yassin, Yassin Nuru, Sheikh Sultan Aman, Sheikh Mekete Muhe, and Sheikh Tahir Abdulkadir. They were arrested as the Ethiopian security forces began a major crackdown on the protests at Awalia and Anwar mosques in Addis Ababa and on protests in other cities as well, arresting and assaulting hundreds of protesters. Although the government has not released numbers, credible sources told Human Rights Watch that as many as 1,000 people were arrested in July alone.
Journalists attempting to cover or report on the protests were also detained or intimidated. Despite these arrests, weekly protests have continued throughout the country.
As in Ethiopia’s earlier terrorism trials of journalists and opposition leaders, the current trial has been marred by serious due process violations.Defendants have had erratic access to lawyers and relatives, and a number of the defendants were initially held for almost two months without access to legal counsel.
Lawyers for the defendants have repeatedly complained to the courts about the treatment of their clients, and alleged that the Muslim committee members and Getachew were mistreated during their pre-trial detention at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Department, known as Maekelawi prison, in Addis Ababa, which is notorious for torture. The complaints do not appear to have been appropriately investigated. Both the first instance court and the higher court have claimed not to have the jurisdiction over these matters.
The defendants have all been charged with “terrorist acts” under article 3 of Ethiopia’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and with planning and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts under article 4. Descriptions of the charges in the initial charge sheet do not contain the basic elements of the crimes that the defendants are alleged to have committed.
Human Rights Watch, other human rights organizations, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have repeatedly raised concerns about the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation’s overly broad provisions, which have been used to criminalize legitimate free expression and peaceful dissent. Thirty-four people, including eleven journalists and at least four opposition supporters, are known to have been sentenced under the law between late 2011 and mid-2012 in apparently politically motivated trials.
The government has also undermined the defendants’ presumption of innocence by broadcasting inflammatory material and accusations against them on state television. In February state-run Ethiopian Television (ETV) broadcast a program called “Jihadawi Harakat” (“Jihad War”) that included footage of at least five of the defendants filmed in pre-trial detention, including Muslim committee members Kamil Shemsu, Ahmed Mustafa, Abubekar Ahmed, and Yassin Nuru, and the activist Nuru Turki. The program equates the Muslim protest movement in Ethiopia with Islamist extremist groups such as Somalia’s armed al-Shabaab militants, and casts the Muslim protest leaders as terrorists. The High Court granted an injunction prohibiting the broadcast but ETV ignored the court order.
The ETV broadcast was the latest in a series of television programs – many of them produced by the government’s Communications Ministry in collaboration with police or security services –that try to smear the defendants in terrorism trials. In November 2011, ETV broadcast “Akeldama” (“Land of Blood”) during the terrorism trial of 24 people, including prominent members of the political opposition and journalists. The program, which included film of several of the defendants in pre-trial detention, apparently under duress, described the defendants’ alleged involvement in a “terrorist plot.”
Two Swedish journalists were the subject of another similar piece in 2011 after they were arrested in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region. They were subjected to a mock execution during the filming.
“The unfair trial of the Muslim activists is compounded by the government’s TV program that demonizes them as ‘terrorists’ and threatens to raise suspicion of all Muslims and their ongoing protests,” Lefkow said. “The Ethiopian government is prosecuting people who are simply trying to protect their rights to religious freedom and free speech.”
The government has also continued to use the anti-terrorism law to silence the media.
Kebede, Getachew’s successor at Yemuslimoch Guday, has been held for more than two months in pre-trial detention without charges. Heis being held in Maekelawi prison, withoutaccess to legal counsel, which heightens concerns about his treatment and safety.
On March 15 the first instance court granted the police an additional 28 days for further investigation in Kebede’s case. The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation permits pre-trial detention for up to four months without charge, one of the longest periods in anti-terrorism legislation worldwide,in violation of Ethiopia’s international legal obligations. Under the Ethiopian constitution detainees must be charged or released within 48 hours.
“Rather than jailing peaceful protesters and critical journalists, the government should amend the anti-terrorism law and stop these politically motivated trials,” Lefkow said. “The government should be reaching out to the Muslim community and discussing their grievances rather than silencing their voices and leaders.”
Professor A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the renowned Indian scientist (“Missile Man of India”) and Eleventh President of India (2002-2007) said, “If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.”
Recently, the World Bank released its 448-page World Bank (WB) report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia” with evidence galore showing that Ethiopia under the absolute dictatorship of the Meles Zenawi regime has become a full-fledged corruptocracy (a regime controlled and operated by a small clique of corrupt-to-the-core vampiric kleptocrats who cling to power to enrich themselves at public expense). Perhaps the report’s findings should not come as surprise to anyone since “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Over the past several weeks, I have made a number of cursory remarks on the shocking findings of the WB report. I have also discreetly appealed to a segment of Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” (its teachers, professors, economists, political and social scientists, lawyers, and other members of the learned professions) to critically examine the report and inform their compatriots on the devastating impact of corruption on the future of their poor country and make some recommendations on how to deal with it. I even challenged the political opposition to issue a “white paper” and make crystal clear their position on accountability and transparency and make some concrete proposals to remedy the endemic corruption that has metastasized in the Ethiopian body politic.
I have yet to see any substantive analysis or commentary on the WB’s “diagnosis of corruption” in Ethiopia in the popular media or in the scholarly journals; nor have I seen any proposals on how to sever the vampiric tentacles of corruption sucking the lifeblood from the Ethiopian people. Could it be that Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” can’t handle ugly truths? Or do Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” turn faint-hearted when it comes to speaking ugly truths to power?
Few can tell the ugly truth about corruption in Ethiopia more bluntly thanGlobal Financial Integrity (GFI), the renowned organization that reports on “illicit financial flows” (illegal capital flight, mispricing, bulk cash movements, hawala transactions, smuggling, etc.) out of developing countries. In 2011, GFI told the world, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.”
Given the icy silence of Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds”, it is my humble duty and unenviable job to continue to speak the ugly truth about corruption to the powers that be in Ethiopia. For years, I have written numerous commentaries on corruption in Ethiopia as a serious human rights violation. I agree with Peter Eigen, founder and chairman of Transparency International (Corruption Index) that “corruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights.” I also believe corruption undermines good governance, cripples the rule of law and destroys citizens’ trust in political leaders, public officials and political institutions.
In 2007 when Ethiopia’s auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported that Birr 600 million of state funds were missing from the regional government coffers, Meles fired Lema and publicly defended the regional administrations’ “right to burn money.” In my December 2008 commentary “The Bleeping Business of Corruption in Ethiopia,” I argued that “corruption in Ethiopia is an evil with a thousand faces. It is woven into the fabric of the political culture.” Corruption is the modus operandi of the regime in power in Ethiopia today. Former president Dr. Negasso Gidada clearly understood the gravity of the situation when he declared in 2001 that “corruption has riddled state enterprises to the core,” adding that the government would show “an iron fist against corruption and graft as the illicit practices had now become endemic”. In 2013, the business of corruption is the biggest business in Ethiopia.
In my November 2009 commentary, “Africorruption, Inc.”, I described the tip of the iceberg of the web of corruption in Ethiopia by synthesizing some of the eye popping anecdotal evidence. Dr. Negasso documented corruption in the misuse and abuse of political power for partisan electoral advantage. Coincidentally, in 2009, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley announced that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.” (For reasons unknown, but not difficult to guess, the U.S. State Department has never released the findings of its investigation.)
The ruling regime’s “Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission” (FEAC) in 2008 documented the fact that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the country’s principal bank. FEAC described the heist as a “huge scandal that took place in the Country’s National Bank and took many Ethiopians by surprise… The corruptors dared to steal lots of pure gold bars that belonged to the Ethiopian people replacing them with gilded irons… Some employees of the Bank, business people, managers and other government employees were allegedly involved in this disastrous and disgracing scandal.”
FEAC also reported that “there was another big corruption case at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation that took many Ethiopians by surprise” which involved the “competitive tendering for the supply of telecommunication equipment.” FEAC “found out that nearly 200 million USD has been lost to corruption through the entire fraudulent and corrupt process…. In another case involving a telecommunications deal with the Chinese, a high level regime official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks for himself and other regime officials.” (Even though high level bank officials were fingered in the gold heist, there is no evidence that any one of them has ever been prosecuted.)
In my November 2011 commentary “To Catch Africa’s Biggest Thieves Hiding in America!”, I called attention to a Wikileaks cablegram which confirmed long held suspicions about massive corruption in the current ruling party in Ethiopia, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF): “Upon taking power in 1991… [the TPLF] liquidated non-military assets to found a series of companies whose profits would be used as venture capital to rehabilitate the war-torn Tigray region’s economy…[with] roughly US $100 million… Throughout the 1990s…, no new EFFORT [Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray owned and operated by TPLF] ventures have been established despite significant profits, lending credibility to the popular perception that the ruling party and its members are drawing on endowment resources to fund their own interests or for personal gain.” According to the World Bank, “roughly half of the Ethiopian national economy is accounted for by companies held by an EPRDF-affiliated business group called the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT)… EFFORT’s freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms on loans from government banks.”
When 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports had simply vanished (not unlike the gold bars that walked out of the National Bank) from the warehouses in 2011, Meles Zenawi called a meeting of commodities traders and threatened to “cut off their hands” if they should steal coffee in the future. In a videotaped statement, Meles told the traders he will forgive them this time because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”.
In my December 2011 commentary “The Art of Bleeding a Country Dry”, I argued, “No one knows corruption — the economics of kleptocracy — better than [Meles] Zenawi. The facts of Zenawi’s corruptonomics are plain for all to see: The [Ethiopian] economy is in the stranglehold of businesses owned or dominated by Zenawi family members, cronies, supporters or hangers-on.”
“Diagnosing Corruption in (in the land of) Ethiopia”
Transparency International (Corruption Index) broadly defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption manifests itself in grand and petty ways. “Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good.” Grand corruption often involves political corruption in which political decision makers manipulate “policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth.” Petty corruption often occurs when the law enforcement officials or bureaucratic functionaries exact payments from “ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies” .
Corruption in Ethiopia is no longer a question of disparate anecdotal evidence or an issue of intellectual debate. Corruption has become the loathsome disease of the Ethiopian body politic. That is why the World Bank carefully titled its report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”. Diagnosis refers to the clinical process of identifying a disease. The 448-page World Bank report has diagnosed corruption as the metastasizing cancer of the Ethiopian body politic.
Corruption in land is the root of all corruption in Ethiopia! Grand corruption in land originates from the upper circles of power in the public and private sector. The powerful political and economic elites in Ethiopia exploit the anarchic, arbitrary, secretive, unaccountable and confused governance of the ruling regime to weave their tangled webs of corruption. The World Bank report states that “the land sector [in Ethiopia] is particularly susceptible to corruption and rent seeking [using social or political institutions to redistribute wealth among different groups without creating new wealth (profit seeking)].” Corruption in land in Ethiopia is inherent (as the old communist ideologues used to say, “part and parcel of”) in “the way policy and legislation are formulated and enforced.”
The World Bank report explains that corruption in the land sector in Ethiopia occurs in several ways. First and foremost, “elite and senior officials” snatch the most desirable lands in the country for themselves. These fat cats manipulate the “weak policy and legal framework and poor systems to implement existing policies and laws” to their advantage. They engage in “fraudulent actions to allocate land to themselves in both urban and rural areas and to housing associations and developers in urban areas.” These “influential and well-connected individuals are able to have land allocated to them often in violation of existing laws and regulations.”
In the capital Addis Ababa, it is “nearly impossible to a get a plot of land without bribing city administration officials.” These officials not only demand huge bribes but have also “conspired with land speculators” and facilitated bogus “housing cooperatives [to become] vehicles for a massive land grab. It is estimated that about 15,000 forged titles have been issued in Addis Ababa in the past five years.”
Management of rural land is similarly deeply infected with corruption. “In rural areas, officials have distorted the definition of ‘public land’ to mean ‘government land’”. Officials define “public purpose” in applying expropriation which is believed to be a leading cause of “landlessness”. Officials have also “engaged in land grabbing to grant land to functionaries” and this is “happening at the woreda (district) level and is being copied by the elected committee members at kebele (subdistrict) level.” According to the World Bank report, “Almost all transactions involving land most often incorporate corruption because there is no clear policy or transparent regulation concerning land.”
It is stunning to learn from the report that the ruling regime does not even have the most elementary system of land management in place. “Rural areas have no maps of registered holdings… In urban areas, there is little mapping of registered property. Encumbrances and restrictions are not recorded in the registers, and the encumbrances, if registered, are listed in a separate document. Land use restrictions are not recorded in the register. There is no inventory of public land, which affects the efficient management of public land and creates opportunities for the illegal allocation of public land to private parties.” Because existing institutions and laws are evaded, ignored and manipulated for private gain, the system of land management is a total failure making it impossible to hold officials in power legally accountable for their corrupt practices.
A variety of methods are used to perpetuate corruption in land in Ethiopia. One “key method” of land corruption involves the illegal allocation of municipal land “to housing cooperatives controlled by developers who then sell off the land informally.” Often “buyers were unaware of the legal status of the land they were buying” and end up in court before judges who are “aligned (in cahoots) with the corrupt officials”. Another “method” is official falsification of documents. “With limited systems in place to record rights, particularly in urban areas, and limited oversight, officials have plenty of opportunities to falsify documents. It is not uncommon for parcels of land to be allocated to many different parties, sometimes to as many as different parties, from whom officials and intermediaries collect multiple transaction and service fees.” Blatant conflict of interest of board members who oversee the lease award process, the absence of a compliance monitoring process for lease allocations and payments and the absence of land use regulations have served to accelerate the metastasizing corruption in land in Ethiopia.
State ownership of all land in Ethiopia is the fountainhead of land corruption. Wealthy elites and influential groups seize the land of the poor and marginalized through forced, but “legal” evictions and eminent domain actions. Nowhere is this type of land grab corruption more conspicuous than in the regime’s land giveaways to foreign “investors”. The World Bank report states that “a substantial proportion of expropriated land is transferred to private interests”, but not to smallholders. “The expropriation and relocation of smallholders has been to the advantage of extensive commercial farming, including flower farms, biofuel, and other commodities.” It is also documented that the Ethiopian “government is forcing the Indigenous Peoples of the southwest off their ancestral lands and leasing these lands to foreign companies.” This expropriation has been achieved through a bogus program of “villagization” in which 1.5 million people have been “resettled” from the regions of Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali, and Afar and their ancestral lands handed over to domestic and international “investors”.
As I documented in my March 2011 commentary, “Ethiopia: Country for Sale”, the Indian agribusiness giant Karuturi Global today owns a 1,000 sq. miles, “an area the size of Dorset, England”, of virgin Ethiopian land for “£150 a week (USD$245)” for “50 years”. As Karuturi Project Manager in Ethiopia Karmjeet Sekhon euphorically explained to Guardian reporter John Vidal, “We never saw the land. They gave it to us and we took it. Seriously, we did. We did not even see the land. They offered it. That’s all.” The Karuturi guys would like us to believe they got something for nothing. The regime wheeler-dealers would like us to believe they gave a 1,000 square miles of virgin land to one of the richest agribusinesses in the world for nothing. Suffice it to say that they may also believe we were born yesterday; but surely, we were not born last night!
Prognosis on corruption in Ethiopia
Corruption in Ethiopia is the principal business of the State. Corruption has metastasized in the Ethiopian body politic because the political and economic elites that have total control over the country’s land resources benefit enormously. They use tailor-made legislative opportunities to secure, sell and speculate in land rights. Because the state is the sole owner of land, those who own the state alone have the power to privatize land, expropriate, lease, zone or approve construction plans or negotiate large-scale land giveaways. Those who control the land in Ethiopia control not only the political and economic process but also the digestive process (stomachs) of 90 million Ethiopians!
The culture of corruption must be changed before the tangled webs of corruption spun by the political and economic elites in Ethiopia are shattered. The major problem with changing the culture of political corruption is, as Peter Eigen observed, “in many parts of the world, the local people are resigned to the fact that there is corruption. They think there is nothing they can do about it. Therefore they more or less try to accommodate themselves, pay bribes themselves.”
Most Ethiopians are unaware of the regime’s “anti-corruption” efforts and those who are aware view the whole effort with a jaded eye. The simple fact of the matter is that having the “anti-corruption” agency (FEAC) to oversee, monitor, investigate and prosecute the architects and beneficiaries of corruption in Ethiopia is like having Tweedle Dee monitor, investigate and prosecute Tweedle Dum. To invoke an old Ethiopian saying, “It is difficult to get a conviction when the son is the robber and the father is the judge.”
Effective anti-corruption efforts require an active democratic culture based on the rule of law and a vigilant citizenry empowered to confront and fight corruption in daily life. Genuine anti-corruption efforts must necessarily begin by empowering ordinary people to fight back, not by creating a make-believe anti-corruption bureaucracy.
There have been some successful experiments in grassroots anti-corruption efforts where ordinary people have been given the tools to fight back corruption. In India, for instance, they have successfully organized local “vigilance commissions” in many towns and brought together the vulnerable and interested groups to probe into corruption. These commissions have put a significant dent in corruption. In Bangalore, “hub for India’s information technology sector”, residents have been involved in rating the quality of all major service providers in the city. The results were used to put pressure on government officials and service providers to become more accountable to citizens. The Central Vigilance Commission of India also runs Project VIGEYE (Vigilance Eye) which is “a citizen-centric initiative” in which “citizens join hands with the Central Vigilance Commission in fighting corruption in India.” VIGEYE provides citizens given multiple channels of engagement in the fight against corruption. In parts of Brazil, citizens are empowered to fight corruption through “participatory budgeting.” By including citizens from various backgrounds in the process of budget allocation, Brazil has been able to decrease levels of corruption and clientelism (exchange of goods and services for political support).
Ethiopia can learn much from Botswana, regarded to be the least corrupt country in Africa. The “Botswana Model” uses the strategy of “name and shame” to educate and accentuate public awareness of corruption. Using the free press as a tool, Botswanans name and shame corrupt officials by publishing their photographs on the front pages with the headline: “Is this man corrupt?” Botswana’s top political leaders are said to maintain high levels of public integrity and teach by example. Peter Eigen credits Botswana’s success to the “Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime in Botswana [which] has processed thousands of [corruption] cases since 1994 and has made great strides against corruption.” In 2012, Botswana ranked an extraordinary 30/174 countries on the Corruption Index. These examples point to the fact that citizen involvement and monitoring are very effective in reducing corruption and increasing public integrity. Creating a bloated, toothless and self-perpetuating anti-corruption bureaucracy such as FEAC is mere window dressing for international donors and loaners.
The other remedy for corruption lies in vigorous and well-publicized criminal prosecutions of corrupt officials, asset forfeitures (divestment of corruptly obtained wealth) and imposition of tough prison sentences on convicted corrupt officials. FEAC’s own data show that corruption prosecutions and convictions in Ethiopia are negligible.
Absent some dramatic treatment for the cancer of corruption in Ethiopia’s land sector, there is no doubt that Ethiopia will be bankrupted in the foreseeable future. This is a country whose foreign reserve today could barely cover two months of its import bills, has accumulated over USD$12 billion in foreign debt; and over the past decade Ethiopia has lost USD$11.7 billion dollars in illicit financial flows. Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” and the opposition elements need to do a better job of addressing the issue of corruption. Passing references to “corruption” that “plagues the infrastructure sector”, “corruption that has never been seen before in the history of” Ethiopia and pleas to “arrest corruption that is rampant in the country” are simply not adequate.
I like to ask naïve questions. When it comes to governance, I ask not why Ethiopia’s rulers have chosen the “China Model” but rather why they have not chosen the “Ghanaian Model?” When it comes to corruption control, I simply ask why Ethiopia’s rulers have chosen not to follow the “Botswana Model”?
At the end of the day, “if Ethiopia is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds,” its “beautifully minded” scholars, professors, researchers, policy analysts, lawyers and other members of the learned professions must renounce their vows of silence and loudly speak truth to black-hearted dictators! Silence may be golden but when we see the gold walking out of the National Bank in broad daylight, we had better scream, shout and holler like hell!!!
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
In June 2011, during her visit to Zambia U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton pulled the alarm bell on a creeping “new colonialism” in Africa. While dismissing “China’s Model” of authoritarian state capitalism as a governance model for Africa, she took a swipe at China for its unprincipled opportunism in Africa. “In the long-run, medium-run, even short-run, no I don’t [think China is a good model of governance in Africa]…We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave, …And when you leave, you don’t leave much behind for the people who are there. We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa…”
It seems the Eagle has finally taken a good look at the sidewinding Dragon eating its lunch in Africa. The U.S. is in stiff competition not only in Africa but also in the “world’s least explored” country. Clinton minced no words in telling the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “We are in a competition for influence with China; let’s put aside the moral, humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in, and let’s just talk straight realpolitik… Take Papua New Guinea: huge energy find … ExxonMobil is producing it. China is in there every day in every way, trying to figure out how it’s going to come in behind us, come under us.”
For the past decade, the U.S. has been nonchalant and complacent about China’s “invasion” and lightning-fast penetration of Africa. It was a complacency born of a combination of underestimation, miscalculation, hubris and dismissive thinking that often comes with being a superpower. But the U.S. is finally reading the memo.
Meanwhile, China is zooming along the African highway of “opportunism” with steely resolve and an iron fist sheathed in velvet gloves lined with loans, aid and expensive gifts. In July 2012, Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Opening Ceremony of the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation proudly proclaimed his country’s economic prowess in Africa. “China’s trade with and investment in Africa have been expanding. In 2011, our two-way trade reached 166.3 billion U.S. dollars, three times the figure in 2006. Cumulative Chinese direct investment in Africa has exceeded 15 billion U.S. dollars, with investment projects covering 50 countries.” He added, “China and Africa have set up 29 Confucius Institutes or Classrooms in 22 African countries. Twenty pairs of leading Chinese and African universities have entered into cooperation under the 20+20 Cooperation Plan for Chinese and African Institutions of Higher Education.”
In 1980, China’s total economic investment in Africa hovered around $USD1 billion; and 20 years later rose only to $USD10 billion. In 2010, China and Ghana signed infrastructure-related loans, credits and made other arrangements valued at about $15 billion. In 2009, China signed a $6 billion loan agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo for infrastructure projects. In 2010, Chinese banks extended nearly $9 billion in loans and other types of financing to Angola for various projects. The Angolan government in turn used its oil credit line to commission the State-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation to build a ghost town outside of the capital at a cost of $USD3.5 billion. (To see the video of the Angolan ghost town click here.) In 2011, Chinese firms accounted for 40% of the corporate contracts in Africa compared to only 2 percent for U.S. firms. According to a report issued by the South African Institute of International Affairs, between 2003-2009, there were between 583,050–820,050 Chinese living, working and doing business in 43 African countries. Today China is Africa’s largest trading partner as the U.S. recedes fast in the rear view mirror.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?
China’s official policy statement on its trade and aid relationship with Africa derives from the first of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. China “respects African countries’ choice in political system and development path suited to their own national conditions, does not interfere in internal affairs of African countries, and supports them in their just struggles for safeguarding their independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.” China rejects accusations of neocolonial ambitions in Africa. President Hu Jintao explained that Africa and China are building a “new type of China-Africa strategic partnership… China and Africa have deepened practical economic cooperation featuring mutual benefit.”
But many critics are quick to point out that China’s assertion of a “strategic partnership” cleverly camouflages its calculated strategic ambition to suck out African natural resources on a long-term basis, cultivate African markets as dumping grounds for its cheap manufactured goods and gradually impose its hegemony over the continent. The policy of “noninterference” is said to be an elaborate and shameless ploy used by China to pacify and anesthetize witless African dictators and secure lucrative long-term contracts for raw materials.
Kwame Nkrumah coined the term “neo-colonialism”, the eponymous title to his book, to describe the socio-economic and political control exercised by the old colonial countries and others to perpetuate their economic dominance in the former colonies through their multinational corporations and other cultural institutions. He wrote, “Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress.In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad.In the colony those who served the ruling imperial power could at least look to its protection against any violent move by their opponents. With neo-colonialism neither is the case...”
Is there Chinese “neocolonialism” in Africa? Is China exercising “power without responsibility” in Africa “causing exploitation without redress” for Africans?
China is in Africa in full force with traders, investors, lenders, builders, developers, laborers and others. But gnawing questions linger. For instance, is China’s “gift” of the $USD200 million African Union (AU) building in Addis Ababa in 2011 a public demonstration of its good faith, good will and good works in Africa or a subtle hint of its neocolonial ambitions and hegemonic designs? Is China’s aid for the construction of roads, rail lines, bridges, dams and other public works projects evidence of an altruistic commitment to improve communication and commerce within Africa or a calculated strategy to further facilitate China’s deep penetration into the African hinterlands for raw materials (not unlike the European colonialists who built rail lines and ports to export Africa’s mineral wealth)? Is China fully supporting corrupt-to-the-core African dictators because it does not want to “interfere” in local politics or is “noninterference” its way of maintaining a chokehold on African dictators to protect its long-term interests in Africa? Does China want to do business in Africa in the short term and control its destiny in the long term?
In my column, “The Dragon’s Dance with Hyenas”, I suggested that Africa’s dictators could not be more happy with their “new strategic partnership” with China. They claim that China is not only a good friend but also the great rescuer of Africa from the ravenous and crushing jaws of neocolonialists, imperialists, neoliberals and other such nasty creatures. AU president in 2011, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the ruthless and corrupt dictator of Equatorial Guinea since 1979, even saw “a reflection of the new Africa, and the future we want for Africa” in the Chinese-built 20-story AU glass tower. The late Meles Zenawi saw China leading Africa on a long march out of the winter of despair and desperation in to the spring of hope and renaissance. He proclaimed China brings to Africa a “message of optimism, a message that is out of the decades of hopelessness and imprisonment a new era of hope is dawning, and that Africa is being unshackled and freed…”
I disagreed with Meles Zenawi when he said he saw the “rise of Africa” and an “African Renaissance” reflected in the glass tower. I peeked behind the façade of that shiny edifice and saw standing “a giggling gang of beggars with cupped palms, outstretched hands, forlorn eyes and shuffling legs looking simultaneously cute and hungry and begging” and unable to pony up the chump change needed to put up a building that is to become their world stage.
The “China Model” and China as an ideal(less) partner for African dictators
African dictators talk about the “China Model” as a solution to Africa’s economic problems in much the same way as African sorcerers invoke voodoo incantations to heal those possessed by evil spirits. But the Chinese reject the notion of a “China Model”. Liu Guijin, China’s special representative on African affairs offered an official disclaimer. “What we are doing is sharing our experiences. Believe me, China doesn’t want to export our ideology, our governance, our model. We don’t regard it as a mature model.”
No African dictator has gone beyond phrase mongering to explain how the “China Model” applies to Africa. But the general idea in championing the “China Model” (“Beijing Consensus”) is that Africa can be successful without following the “Washington Consensus” (a set of ten policies supported by the U.S. and the international lending institutions including “fiscal discipline (limiting budget deficits), increasing foreign direct investments, privatization, deregulation, diminished role for the state, etc.). China presumably became a global economic power in just a few decades by pursuing state controlled capitalism instead of free market capitalism, avoiding political liberalization, giving a commanding role for the ruling political party in the economy and society, heavily investing in infrastructure projects, engaging in trial and error economic experimentation, etc.
African dictators believe they can achieve a comparable level of economic development by copycatting China. For Meles Zenawi and his disciples, the “China Model” is the magic carpet that will transport Ethiopia from abysmal underdevelopment and poverty to stratospheric economic growth and industrialization. African dictators are particularly enamored with the “China Model” because China achieved its economic “miracles” in a one-party system that has a chokehold on all state institutions including the civil service and the armed and security forces and by instituting a vast system of controls and censorship that keeps the people from challenging the government or learning about alternatives.
In reality, the “China Model” for African dictators demonstrates not so much the success of authoritarian state capitalism but the triumph of praetorian klepto-capitalism – a form of militarized kleptocratic capitalism in which African dictators and their cronies control the state apparatus and the economy using the military and security forces. African dictators in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, etc. rule by coercion and their coercive power derives almost exclusively from their control and manipulation of the military, police, and security forces, party apparatuses and bloated bureaucracies which they use for political patronage. They have successfully eliminated rival political parties, civil society institutions and the independent press.
The “China Model” is the ultimate smokescreen for African Dictators, Inc. It provides a plausible justification for avoiding transparent and accountable governance, competitive, free and fair elections and suppression of free speech and the press. Simply stated, the “China Model” in Africa is a huge hoax perpetrated on the people with the aim of imposing absolute control and exacting total political obedience while justifying brutal suppression of all dissent and maximizing the ruling class’ kleptocratic monopoly over the economy.
Could the “China Model” work in Africa?
Stripped off its hype, the “China Model” in Africa is the same old one-man, one-party pony that has been around since the early days of African independence in the 1960s. Time was when Zenawi, Museveni and Kagame were crowned the “new breed of African leaders” (by neoliberal imperators Bill Clinton and Tony Blair) and given a free pass to suck at the teats of neoliberal cash cows such as the World Bank and the IMF. Today these dictators heap contempt on “neoliberalism” as a “band-aid” approach to development, criticize the “gunboat diplomacy” of the U.S. (whose hard working taxpayers have shelled out tens of billions of dollars to shore up these dictatorships in the last decade) and tongue-lash “extremist neo-liberal” human rights defenders and advocates for slamming them on their atrocious human rights record and mindboggling corruption. If neoliberalism did not work in Africa, why should the “China Model” work?
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but flattery does not get you anywhere in economic development. The great absurdity of all African dictators is that they believe they can copycat “word-for-word” ideas and practices from different countries, systems and cultures and make it work in Africa. For instance, in February 2012, Meles Zenawi literally believed he had the most perfect antiterrorism law in the entire world. He told his rubberstamp parliament with great pride and gusto, “In drafting our anti-terrorism law, we copied word-for-word the very best anti-terrorism laws in the world. We took from America, England and the European model anti-terrorism laws. It is from these three sources that we have drafted our anti-terrorism law. From these, we have chosen the better ones.”
One cannot pirate, copycat or cut-and-paste an economic model in the same way as one would make knockoffs of famous fashion accessories, popular brands of electronics or machine parts. But African dictators believe they can cut-and-paste the “China Model” in Africa and create economic miracles. But what they have succeeded in creating is the optical illusion of economic development by constructing shiny glass buildings and fancy roadways that go nowhere while sucking their national economies bone dry. As Global Financial Integrity concluded, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.” That is what the “China Model” means in Ethiopia, and for that matter in much of Africa where it is followed.
Fightin’ Eagle in Africa?
So far we have heard a screaming Eagle grousing about the unfair advantage, immorality, amorality, opportunism and new colonialism of the Dragon. But will we ever see a fightin’ Eagle standing up to a fire-breathin’ Dragon in Africa and “win”?
The U.S. “battle plan”, other than the “moral, humanitarian, do good” human rights rhetoric, is to do too little too late. In 2000, the U.S. enacted The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)followed by the Africa Investment Incentive Act of 2006 to substantially expand preferential access for imports into the U.S. from designated Sub-Saharan African countries. These laws were intended to be substitutes for a Free Trade Agreement and enable reforming African countries the most liberal access to the U.S. market. By creating effective partnerships with U.S. firms and encouraging African governments to reform their economic and commercial regimes, the U.S. hoped to change and improve its long-term trade relations with Africa and open vast opportunities for Africans. As of 2011, U.S. trade with sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 3 percent of total U.S. imports and 1 percent of U.S. exports. Oil makes up more than 90 percent of the $44 billion generated by U.S. imports from the AGOA countries. These laws have produced little success in achieving their aims.
Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Chris Coons, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs released a report (“Embracing Africa’s Economic Potential”) which underscored the “clear and pressing need for increased U.S. economic engagement in sub-Saharan Africa.” The Report argued that “increased trade facilitates growth for U.S. businesses as well as our African partners, simultaneously strengthening our own economy and Africa’s emerging markets.” It made several recommendations urging the development of a comprehensive strategy for increased U.S. investment in Sub-Saharan Africa, reauthorization and strengthening of the AGOA, removal of economic barriers and engagement of the African diaspora community in the United States. It will be hard to fight a Dragon with Eagle feathers!
How about an “Africa Model”?
I like to ask naïve questions. For instance, I ask not why China built the African Union Hall but why 53 plus African countries could not chip in or borrow the chump change needed to build the most symbolic building on the continent representing the independence, unity and hope of all African peoples? By the same token, I do not ask why an increasing number of African countries choose to follow the “China Model” but rather why they avoid following an African model such as the “Ghana’s Model”?
I am a big fan of Ghana. In July, 2009, in one of my weekly commentaries I asked one of my naïve questions: “What is it the Ghanaians got, we ain’t got?”. I argued that present day Ghana offers a reasonably good, certainly not perfect, template of governance for the rest of Africa. Ironically, it is to Ghana, the cradle of the one-man, one-party rule in Sub-Saharan Africa, that the rest of Africa must now turn to find a model of constitutional multiparty democracy.
Ghana today has a functioning, competitive, multiparty political system guided by its 1992 Constitution. Political parties have the constitutional right to freely organize and “disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programs of a national character”. Tribal and ethnic parties are illegal in Ghana under Article 55 (4). That is the secret of Ghana’s political success. The Ghanaians also have an independent electoral commission (Art. 46) which is “not subject to the direction or control of any person or authority” and has proven its mettle time and again by ensuring the integrity of the electoral process.
Ghanaians enjoy a panoply of political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights. There are more than 133 private newspapers, 110 FM radio stations and two state-owned dailies in Ghana. Ghanaians express their opinions without fear of government retaliation. The rule of law is upheld and the government follows and respects the Constitution. Ghana has a fiercely independent judiciary, which is vital to the observance of the rule of law and protection of civil liberties. Political leaders and public officials abide by the rulings and decisions of the courts and other fact-finding inquiry commissions.
It is possible to do business with China without following the “China Model.” Ghana has done billions of dollars worth of business with China without using the “China Model”. In 2012, Ghana snagged a loan from China for a cool USD$3 billion. In 2010, Ghana signed deals with China for various infrastructure projects valued at about $15 billion. Ghana is proof positive that Africa can do business with China without becoming “Western” China. Ghana is certainly not a utopia, but she is living proof that multiparty constitutional democracy can help salvage African countries like Ethiopia from political and economic dystopia. Why not adopt the “Ghanaian Model” continent wide?
“Let’s put aside the moral… and just talk straight realpolitik”
As Secretary Clinton rhetorically urged, “Let’s just talk straight realpolitik.” In international politics, there are no moral standards. The rule is might and self-interest makes right. That principle of international amorality has been taught since the ancient Greek historian Thucydides described relations between nations as anarchic and immoral. The world is driven by competitive self-interest. Machiavelli and Hobbes warned against mixing morality in the relations between nations as did Hans Morgenthau in the mid-20th Century. He wrote, “Universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place.” International amorality has its own virtues. Zeng Huacheng, a counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia says, “It’s not China versus America. It’s whatever helps the Ethiopians. If we don’t help, Africans will suffer.” So also said the fox guarding the hens in the henhouse, “I am here only to protect and serve you.”
There is an old African saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. What could happen when the Dragon and the Eagle fight in Africa? Who is likely to win? Not to worry. There will be no fight as there was no fight at the Berlin Conference in 1884; only a gentlemen’s agreement.
I believe there will be a great struggle for the destiny of Africa – a destiny that beckons Africa to take the low road of developmental thralldom and another that summons Africa to rise up and follow the high road to freedom. That struggle will be decided in a contest between the powers of “greedom” and the powers of freedom.
Will Africa’s destiny be determined by the Dragon, the laughing-to-the-bank hyenas, the Eagle or the people of Africa? The dragon is symbol of power and strength. The Emperor of China used the image of the dragon to project his imperial ambitions and domination. The Eagle represents freedom. The Eagle can freely sweep into the valleys below or fly upward into in to the boundless sky. The hyena thrives on carrion. But the African people have the power of freedom in their hands and in their souls.
Speaking truth to power means speaking truthfully to power and letting the chips fall where they may. I see great similarity in what the Chinese and the U.S. are doing in Africa. China gives money, loans, aid and gifts to corrupt-to-the core African governments. Doesn’t the U.S.? The only difference is that China is honest about it. China does not speak with forked tongue. It does not talk our ears off about human rights violations and crimes against humanity and turn around and reward the criminals with billions of dollars in aid and loans. For China, there is no human rights, it’s all strictly business. Aah! But isn’t U.S. talk of human rights in Africa as beautiful as the sight of the Bald Eagle in flight against the background of snow-capped mountains and the deep blue sky? But the U.S. first minds its business before minding African human rights. I am afraid human rights in Africa for both countries is a simple issue of mind over matter. They mind their businesses, don’t mind African dictators and the human rights of Africans don’t matter!
Perhaps the answer to the question of Africa’s destiny was given long ago by the man elected as the “Father of African Unity” at the 1972 Ninth Heads of States and Governments meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). H.I.M. Haile Selassie at the 1963 inaugural O.A.U. Summit told his fellow African heads of state:
… Africa was a physical resource to be exploited and Africans were chattels to be purchased bodily or, at best, peoples to be reduced to vassalage and lackeyhood. Africa was the market for the produce of other nations and the source of the raw materials with which their factories were fed…
…The answers [to the continent’s problems] are within our power to dictate. The challenges and opportunities which open before us today are greater than those presented at any time in Africa’s millennia of history. The risks and the dangers which confront us are no less great. The immense responsibilities which history and circumstance have thrust upon us demand balanced and sober reflection. If we succeed in the tasks which lie before us, our names will be remembered and our deeds recalled by those who follow us. If we fail, history will puzzle at our failure and mourn what was lost… May [we]… be granted the wisdom, the judgment, and the inspiration which will enable us to maintain our faith with the peoples and the nations which have entrusted their fate to our hands.
Thus spoke the African Lion!
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
The great American poet Walt Whitman said, “Either define the moment or the moment will define you.” Will the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as president of Kenya define President Barack Obama in Africa or will President Barack Obama use the election of President Kenyatta to define his human rights policy in Africa?
Following the presidential election in late December 2007 and the Kenya Electoral Commission’s hurried declaration of incumbent President Mwai Kibaki as the winner, supporters of opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga in the Orange Democratic Movement alleged widespread electoral fraud and irregularities. For nearly two months following that election, ethnic violence and strife in Kenya raged resulting in more than 1200 deaths, 3,500 injuries, and the displacement of over 350,000 persons and destruction of over 100,000 properties.
Kenyatta and Ruto are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Kenyatta’s lawyer Steven Kay claimed the ICC charges were “determined on false evidence, evidence that was concealed from the defense and the facts underlying the charges have been put utterly and fully in doubt.”
U.S. efforts to ensure free and fair elections in Kenya after 2008
The U.S. was among the first nations to recognize the validity of Kenya’s 2007 presidential election. At the time, U.S. State Department Spokesman Robert McInturff announced, “The United States congratulates the winners and is calling for calm, and for Kenyans to abide by the results declared by the election commission. We support the commission’s decision.” But U.S. validation of that election was completely unwarranted since there was substantial credible evidence of rampant electoral fraud and vote rigging in favor of Kibaki and considerable doubt about the neutrality and integrity of the Kenya Electoral Commission.
Over the past two years, the U.S. has made significant investments to promote free and fair elections in Kenya and prevent a repetition of the 2007 violence. According to the U.S. State Department, “since 2010, the U.S. Government has contributed more than $35 million to support electoral reform, civic education, and elections preparation in Kenya. In addition, since 2008, we have provided more than $90 million to support constitutional reform, conflict mitigation, civil society strengthening, and youth leadership and empowerment, all of which contribute significantly to the goal of free, fair, and peaceful elections in Kenya.”
Obama’s defining moment in Africa?
The March 2013 presidential election in which Kenyatta won by a razor thin margin of 50.7 percent is not entirely free of controversy. Raila Odinga, who received about 43 percent of the votes, has rejected the outcome of the election and filed action in court alleging collusion between the Kenyatta and the electoral commission, not unlike what happened in 2007. This time around, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered only half-hearted congratulations and assurances to the people of Kenya and applauded the fortitude of those who counted the ballots. But his congratulatory statement belied an apparent disappointment as manifested in his omission of the names of the election victors. “On behalf of the United States of America, I want to congratulate the people of Kenya for voting peacefully on March 4 and all those elected to office… I am inspired by the overwhelming desire of Kenyans to peacefully make their voices heard… We … will continue to be a strong friend and ally of the Kenyan people.”
Prior to the election, it seemed President Obama and his top African policy man Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson were playing a bit of the old “good cop, bad cop” routine. President Obama in a special video message to the people of Kenya said that though he is proud of his Kenyan heritage “the choice of who will lead Kenya is up to the Kenyan people. The United States does not endorse any candidate for office…” He assured Kenyans that they “will continue to have a strong friend and partner in the United States of America.” But Johnnie Carson who was also a former U.S. ambassador to Kenya, was more blunt in hinting to Kenyans that their “choices have consequences”. Carson hectored Kenyans that they “should be thoughtful about those they choose to be leaders, the impact their choices would have on their country, region or global community.” Does that mean electing ICC suspects in crimes against humanity could bring about crippling sanctions?
What is good for the goose is good for the gander?
Now that Kenyatta and Ruto are elected, will the U.S. do what it did with Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan, another notorious suspect indicted by the ICC? Or will Kenyatta and his government receive special dispensation from sanctions and other penalties?
Carson argued that Kenya and the Sudan are two different situations. “I don’t want to make a comparison with Sudan in its totality because Sudan is a special case in many ways.” What makes Bashir and Sudan different, according to Carson, is the fact that Sudan is on the list of countries that support terrorism and Bashir and his co-defendants are under indictment for the genocide in Darfur. Since “none of that applies to Kenya,” according to Carson, it appears the U.S. will follow a different policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Kerry seemed to provide a more direct response in his “congratulatory” statement in explaining why Kenya will get special treatment. “Kenya has been one of America’s strongest and most enduring partners in Africa… and [the U.S] will continue to be a strong friend and ally of the Kenyan people.” That is diplomatese for “we will continue with business as usual in Kenya” come hell or high water at the ICC. Carson’s predecessor, Jendayi Frazer, cut to the chase: “Kenyatta knows that he needs the United States, and the United States knows it needs Kenya… And so I suspect that while it might be awkward, there won’t be a significant change in our policy stances toward Kenya or theirs toward us.”
A double standard of U.S. human rights policy in Africa?
It seems the U.S. has a double standard of human rights policy in Africa. One for those the U.S. does not like such as Bashir and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and another for those it likes like the late Meles Zenawi, Paul Kagame, Yuweri Museveni and now Uhuru Kenyatta.
Following Bashir’s ICC indictment in 2009, Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, demanded his arrest and prosecution: “The people of Sudan have suffered too much for too long, and an end to their anguish will not come easily. Those who committed atrocities in Sudan, including genocide, should be brought to justice.” Just before her resignation last month, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urged: “Governments and individuals who either conduct or condone atrocities of any kind, as we have seen year after year in Sudan, have to be held accountable.” The U.S. has frozen the assets of individuals and businesses allegedly controlled by Mugabe’s henchmen because the “Mugabe regime rules through politically motivated violence and intimidation and has triggered the collapse of the rule of law in Zimbabwe.”
Legend has it that President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza that “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Despite lofty rhetoric in support of the advancement of democracy and protection of human rights in Africa, the United States continues to subsidize and coddle African dictatorships that are as bad as or even worse than Mugabe’s. The U.S. currently provides substantial economic aid, loans, technical and security assistance to the repressive regimes in Ethiopia, Congo (DRC), Uganda, Rwanda and others. None of these countries hold free elections, allow the operation of an independent press or free expression or abide by the rule of law. All of them are corrupt to the core, keep thousands of political prisoners, use torture and ruthlessly persecute their opposition.
No case of double standard in U.S. human rights policy in Africa is more instructive than Equatorial Guinea where Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been in power since 1979. Teodoro Obiang is said to make Robert Mugabe “seem stable and benign”. The U.S. maintains excellent relations with Teodoro Obiang because of vast oil reserves in Equatorial Guinea. But all of the oil revenues are looted by Obiang and his cronies. In 2011, the U.S. brought legal action in federal court against Teodoro Obiang’s son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue to seize corruptly obtained assets including a $40 million estate in Malibu, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a luxury plane and super-sports cars worth millions of dollars. In describing the seizure action, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer crowed, “We are sending the message loud and clear: the United States will not be a hiding place for the ill-gotten riches of the world’s corrupt leaders.” (Ironically, U.S. law requires the U.S. to return any assets or proceeds from an asset forfeiture court action to the government from which it was stolen. In other words, the assets or proceeds from the forfeiture action against son Teodoro Nguema Obiang will eventually be returned to father Teodoro Obiang Nguema!!!)
But the U.S. has not touched any of the other African Ali Babas and their forty dozen thieving cronies who have stolen billions and stashed their cash in U.S. and other banks. For instance, Global Financial Integrity reported in 2011 reported that “Ethiopia, which has a per-capita GDP of just US$365, lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2009. In 2009, illicit money leaving the economy totaled US$3.26 billion, which is double the amount in each of the two previous years…” Is there really any one wonder who in Ethiopia has the ability to amass such wealth or “illicitly” ship it out of the country and where much of that cash is stashed? Suffice it to say that the dictators in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda… may be kleptocrats, criminals against humanity, genociders, election thieves, torturers, abusers of power… , but they are OUR kleptocrats, criminals against humanity…”
Does the Obama Administration have a (African) human rights policy?
If anyone is searching for the Obama Administration’s global or African human rights policy, s/he may (or may not) find it in the recent statements of Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the United States. Posner said American human rights policy is based on “principled engagement”: “We are going to go to the United Nations and join the Human Rights Council and we’re going to be part of iteven though we recognize it doesn’t work… We’re going to engage with governments that are allies but we are also going to engage with governments with tough relationships and human rights are going to be part of those discussions.” Second, the U.S. will follow “a single standard for human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it applies to all including ourselves…” Third, consistent with President “Obama’s personality”, the Administration believes “change occurs from within and so a lot of the emphasis… [will be] on how we can help local actors, change agents, civil society, labor activists, religious leaders trying to change their societies from within and amplify their own voices and give them the support they need…” But does “engagement” of African dictators mean sharing a cozy bed with them so that they can suck at the teats of American taxpayers to satisfy their insatiable aid addiction?
Since 2008, the U.S. Government has spent $125 million to support electoral reform, civic education, constitutional reform, conflict mitigation, civil society strengthening, and youth leadership and empowerment for free democratic elections in Kenya. But just north of the Kenyan border in Ethiopia, how much has the U.S. invested to support electoral reform, civic education, civil society strengthening, etc., has the U.S. invested? (That is actually a trick question. Civil society institutions are illegal in Ethiopia and no electoral reform is needed where the ruling party wins elections by 99.6 percent.)
In May 2010 after Meles Zenawi’s party won 99.6 percent of the seats in parliament, the White House issued a Statement expressing “concern that international observers found that the elections fell short of international commitments”; but the statement unambiguously affirmed that “we will work diligently with Ethiopia to ensure that strengthened democratic institutions and open political dialogue become a reality for the Ethiopian people.” To paraphrase William Buckley, “I won’t insult the intelligence of the White House by suggesting that they really do believe the statement they had issued.”
“There’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain…”
There is a great moral irony in the Obama Administration’s human rights policy in Africa. The President seems to believe that he is moving the African human rights agenda forward while appearing to be backsliding metaphorically similar to Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalk” dance. My humble personal view, (with all due respect to President Obama and his office and mindful of my own full support for his election in 2008 and re-election in 2012), is that President Obama needs to straight walk his human rights talk, not “moonwalk” it. I feel he does not have the confidence in the power of American ideals that I have as a naïve academician and lawyer. He is in an extraordinary historical position in world history as a person of color to advance American ideals in convincing and creative ways. But it seems to me that he has chosen to stand his ground on expediency with little demonstrated faith in American ideals. He now finds himself on a tightrope of moral ambiguity, which impels his hand to choose expediency over consistency of ideals and principles every time he deals with African dictators. He has chosen the creed of realpolitik at a time in global history when the common man and woman stand their ground on principle and ideals of human dignity.
In the “Arab Spring”, ordinary Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians, Yemeni’s and others who have always faced privation, oppression, corruption and destitution rose up and stood their ground on the principle of human dignity and the rights of Man and Woman. They wanted basic human dignity more than loaves of bread. It is true that one cannot eat dignity like bread nor drink it like milk. But dignity is like oxygen. It is the essence of human existence. If one cannot breathe, one can neither eat nor drink. Human beings without dignity merely exist like the beasts of the wilderness — aimless, purposeless, meaningless, desultory, fearful and permanently insecure.
It seems to me President Obama has crossed over from the strength of American ideals to the weakness of political expediency. He has chosen to overlook and thereby excuse the cruelty and inhumanity of Africa’s ruthless dictators, their bottomless corruption and their endless crimes against humanity. He says he will “engage” African dictators on human rights. Some “engagement” it is to wine, dine and lionize them as America’s trade partners and “partners on the war on terror”! But the real terror is committed by these dictators on their own people every day as they smash and trash religious liberties, steal elections, jail journalists, shutter newspapers, fill their jails with political prisoners and so on. “Engagement” of African dictators for the sake of the war on terror and oil has created a monstrous moral complacency which tolerates and justifies the ends of evil for the illusion of good.
In his first inaugural speech, President Obama served notice to the world’s dictators: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” In July 2009, in Ghana, President Obama told Africa’s “strongmen” they are on the wrong side of history: “History offers a clear verdict: governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not…. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end… Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans [citizens and their communities driving change], and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”
Senator Obama before becoming president said: “[Reinhold Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”
Perhaps President Obama has forgotten his philosophical roots. But Niebuhr’s philosophy has special relevance in dealing with not only the evils of communist totalitarianism but also the evils of dictatorships, criminals against humanity, kleptocrats, abusers of power and genociders in Africa today. I wish to remind President Obama of his words in his first inauguration speech: “Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”
If I had a chance to have a word or two with President Obama, I would ask him eight naïve questions:
1) On which “side of history” are you?
2) If “Africa does not need strongmen”, why does America need them?
3) Why does America support governments that “do not respect the will of their own people” and as a direct result have made their countries failed states (not “prosperous, successful and stable ones”)?
4) Why can’t you help ordinary Africans “end tyranny” in the continent?
5) When will you stop “moonwalking” your human rights talk and actually straight walk your eloquent talk in Africa?
6) What are you prepared to do in the next four years about the “serious evil” of dictatorship, corruption and abuse of power in Africa and stop using the war on terror and oil as an excuse for “cynicism and inaction” ?
7) Do you think the people of Africa will render a “verdict” in your favor (assuming you care)?
8) When will you start living up to the “ideals that light up the world” and give up “expedience”?
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
The silence of Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds”
Flight of the Eagle and pursuit of the Dragon 
The great American poet Walt Whitman said, “Either define the moment or the moment will define you.” Will the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as president of Kenya define President Barack Obama in Africa or will President Barack Obama use the election of President Kenyatta to define his human rights policy in Africa?