HE MIGHT not have been able to stand when the national anthem was played in Darwin at the Arafura games in May this year, but you couldn’t find a prouder Australian than Abebe Fekadu.
“I cried with happiness when they raised the flag and played the national anthem for me,” Fekadu says.
“I was so proud to be there as an Australian.” After almost a decade of hardship, Fekadu finally has a reason to look forward to the future. Not only is he one of Australia’s newest citizens, but the 37-year-old paraplegic won gold in powerlifting for his adopted country and qualified to compete at the Paralympics in Beijing next year.
Ironically, it was while agitating for freedom and democracy in his home country of Ethiopia that Abebe Fekadu lost his own.
In 1996, the young activist had spent three months in an Addis Ababa prison for demonstrating against the imprisonment of political prisoners.
“It was hell. There were a hundred people in one cell. They beat us with electrical wire, handcuffed us with our hands behind our back. They did to us the worst things that you can ever do to another human being.”
Fekadu had reason to fear even after his release. In 1978, at the height of the socialist government’s “Red Terror” campaign, his father, a wealthy businessman, was executed, accused of being “anti-revolutionary”.
“I was eight. They took my father to prison and he never came home,” Fekadu says. Despite his previous incarceration, he continued to oppose the government. “All we wanted was freedom of speech and peace. To be able to vote without fear, to live in a better country,” he says.
It was at a secret pro-democracy meeting in the town of Gondar in 1997 that his life changed irrevocably.
The group’s lookout spotted the police and Fekadu ran for his car. A high speed chase ensued and the car spun out of control, Fekadu was thrown from the driver’s seat and lay crushed under the car.
“I was unconscious and they believed I was dead, so they left me.”
He was rescued by passersby.
“When I regained consciousness, they asked if I would like to go to a hospital in the capital, but I couldn’t, I knew it was dangerous. Instead they got me a traditional medicine man who told me I would be OK, and gave me medicine. It didn’t stop the pain though, and at times I wanted to die because it was so bad.”
Ten days later when he showed no sign of improvement, the people who were sheltering him took him to the capital. “The doctor saw me and he told my relatives I wouldn’t walk again, that my only hope of some sort of life was treatment overseas.”
Friends helped Fekadu fly to Italy where his brother lived.
“In Italy I had an operation, to put plates in my spine so that at least I could sit, and I spent six months in hospital recovering flat on my back.”
He was released into the care of his brother, who lived in a seventh floor apartment with no lift. When an attempt was made to take Fekadu down, the enraged landlady screamed at the pair that it was not a place for people with wheelchairs and that he should get out.
“My brother tried to find an accessible place for us to live but couldn’t, so he told her I was gone and from that time I could only stay in the flat. For 10 months I saw nobody.”
In desperation, Fekadu’s brother got new passports and visas and told him they were going to Amsterdam for treatment. Instead, in 1998, they flew to Australia where they claimed asylum and were detained.
For Fekadu, life in detention was an improvement. But
the sense of liberation didn’t last long – his brother was sent back and while Fekadu’s case was considered he was released with a bridging visa, meaning he was unable to work, study or receive any state-funded medical assistance.
“It was like home detention. Life as an asylum seeker is very bad – you have no idea of what is going to happen to your life. Any time, any day they could send you back home. I have no complaints though. If I complain about the Australian Government, then I complain about the Australian people – and it is thanks only to their kindness, those people of Brisbane who provided me with food, shelter and emotional and psychological help for all this time, that I am alive today.”
It was at the suggestion of a volunteer that Fekadu began going to the local sporting wheelies gym.
“I was very depressed at that time. My English was poor, I had no strength in my arms to operate my chair, and didn’t know how to catch public transport. After a few months I grew stronger and I started to see other disabled people and what they were capable of and had some hope.”
Fekadu began powerlifting and entered his first professional competition in 2002, going on to become Australian champion in 2004, 2005 2006 and 2007. “I had not been sporty at all before this – it never occurred to me that I could be an athlete.”
Earlier this year, he was given the news he had waited nine years for.
He was granted a “talent visa”, acknowledging his special sporting skill and just days before the Arafura games, took part in a citizenship ceremony.
“It was a big party, with all the people who had helped me there, so many wonderful people who had looked after me.”
At the Arafura games Fekadu competed for the first time as an Australian, lifting 157.5kg, almost three times his bodyweight to win gold. He now hopes that with the help of a sponsor, he’ll be able to reach his ultimate goal – to compete for Australia in Beijing in 2008.
“It is my greatest wish and dream to compete as an Australian and to inspire people, both people with disabilities and asylum seekers, to give them hope that if you just keep going, one day, eventually, a door will open for you,” he says.
* Fekadu is seeking sponsorship to help him get to Beijing. Contact the Refugee Claimants Centre in Windsor on 3357 9013.
Michael Maren went to Kenya in 1977 to work for the Peace Corps, and has spent about twenty years in Africa, first as a development and aid worker, and later as a journalist. He has witnessed a wide range of wars and famines, from Somalia to Rwanda, and the sundry efforts of governmental and charity organizations to aid refugees and develop economies. Still, he says that Africa today is in much worse shape than when he arrived. In his book The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity (The Free Press, 1997), Maren outlines the ways in which the U.S. Agency for International Development, CARE, Save the Children, et al. have actually contributed to the economic, social and political problems in underdeveloped nations, even as they were trying to alleviate them. When this interview took place, Maren lived in New York City and spent much of his time in Africa. He spoke with Stephen Hubbell, Middle East correspondent for The Nation and a contributing editor of Harper’s, at Maren’s New York apartment. Maren has since said goodby to all that and now writes screenplays from his home in Litchfield County. Connecticut.
Interview with Michael Mared
You spoke at the Cato Institute last week.
The inevitable question from the audience is “Are you saying that we should just let people starve to death?” Somebody always says that, and there’s nothing in anything I’ve written that says we should let people starve to death, that we shouldn’t help people. What I’m saying is that what we’re doing isn’t helping people, and, in fact, it’s hurting people. People are having trouble making that conceptual leap-that helping people is hurting people. They want to believe that Save The Children saves the children, that CARE cares, that Feed the Children is feeding children, whatever.
Did the process of becoming jaded about foreign aid and development assistance began when you were in the Peace Corps or later?
About a year after I got there I realized that as a Peace Corps volunteer in this little village, I was a political pawn. This was in Kenya, a village that at the time was very isolated. I was there to teach, and what I learned was that I was at that school because The people in the village bribed some people from the Ministry of Education when they’d learned that white teachers were available. Everybody wanted a white teacher, and schools competed with each other for students, so when they knew there was a white teacher coming to that school, they got a lot more kids applying, and a lot more money. They were supposed to build a new classroom for me, and a bunch of material had arrived-cement, stones-and the next morning it was all gone because the headmaster was building a little shop for himself in The market. And nobody cared; The people just rolled over for this stuff. And that’s when I started thinking about development and what it was. What I realized was, there was this thin kind of layer of pond scum over the village social pool, a group of people who were more westernized. They knew how to operate the mechanisms, how to talk to the government, they spoke English very well. They were the people who were contractors, owned shops in the village, happened to be the headmaster of the school, the preacher and all. They were part of the patronage system that kept the whole country running, and they were the people who benefited from any projects. If money came to the village, it came through them. And I was part of them.
To what extent, if at all, did your Peace Corps handlers have any sense that your presence in this village was only tangentially educational?
They knew. Peace Corps volunteers used to get together in our time off and talk about how you couldn’t teach, the whole system was idiotic. I was teaching “The Merchant of Venice” to kids who could not read a second-grade primer. And this was the national curriculum. We were teaching physics to kids who’d never seen a light bulb. It was a waste of time, and they weren’t equipped to learn, and it was too late to back up and give them 10 years of education at that point.
So you decided, even though the Peace Corps was jading, that the circumstances of the life weren’t bad, and you went into aid work. At which point your expertise added up to…
To nil. I was a smart guy, but I had a degree in English, and I heard by chance that Catholic Relief Services (CRS) needed somebody who knew the countryside to take this job starting up work programs in Kenya. There was a million-dollar budget and tons of food coming in, and we were going to build roads and dig wells and go to villages with bags of food and all kinds of stuff. My job was to drive around the country going to places where projects had been proposed and approve or disapprove them. My real job was to just approve them and keep the food moving. Don’t turn down projects was the idea. But I did take it somewhat seriously and turned down a couple of projects, which got me in trouble. They wanted me to go and make sure the projects actually existed, and they’d ship the food out. A lot of money was involved, which CRS had to spend.
Let me understand a little more thoroughly why it is that an organization like CRS or the Peace Corps spends so much money in payoffs, bribes-costs that are prior to actually doing. business in a country.
It’s not fraud per se. I think one of the misconceptions about these charities is that they run on donations from the public. They don’t. They run on contract. CARE, CRS, World Vision, Save the Children –they are government contractors more than charities. They get government contracts to do stuff, and the more they do, the more money they get. Contracts always include a certain percentage that goes to salaries, to pay administrators and office costs back home, so that they’re perfectly willing to take on anything, because it’s cash flowing through the organization.
I had this picture of development and aid workers being often insufferably pious, a little sanctimonious about what they do. Sure, they inhabit this special zone of privilege, but at the same time, they view themselves as deliverers of a kind of civilization.
Well, it’s missionary work, essentially. The thing is, it’s more than pious. There are some really good people out there doing aid work, but I have to say-and this mostly comes from experience as a journalist-that without a doubt, some of the most sanctimonious assholes I have ever met in my life, some of the worst people, and I mean really bad people, work for charities and aid organizations on The ground.
What attracts them to it?
Power. They have very few special skills; they have strong desires to be in places like that; they have a sense of adventure. But there’s no specific skills that are really necessary. But you walk in there and you have life-and-death power over people’s lives. And all of a sudden you have a 22-year-old aid worker telling 12,000 refugees to get over here, to get in line. It gives you a real sense of power. I’d get to these villages, and people would know I’d be coming, and whoever wanted the project would meet me with dancing children singing songs with my name in them and stuff. They’d give me goats; they sent hookers over to my room at night.
What did you do with the goats?
I didn’t do anything with the goats or with the hookers. The goats I always refused or asked to give them to the poorest person in the village, because I didn’t know what to do with a goat. I went to a village one time, and I had a pickup truck with my sleeping bag and a bunch of other stuff in the back. I came back one day and there was this goat sitting in the back of my truck eating my sleeping bag, munching on its feathers, and I was really pissed off. Nevertheless, I was having a very good time. The cost of owning your own vehicle in Kenya, especially at that age, was prohibitive to most people, and I got to drive around for an entire year. It was magnificent. Pot was about 535 a ton, so I drove around and smoked big reefers and listened to rock-and-roll and watched animals and camped out.
So after CRS you stayed on in Kenya?
No. I really wanted to stay, but if you’re gonna move up in the ranks of development-the hierarchy is volunteer, which I did, and then non-governmental organization (NGO), where the money is a lot better. There was a big growth opportunity in Somalia at the time- this was the end of 1980, early 1981-and I jumped on it, being a food monitor. They had tons and tons of food up there going to ethnic Somali refugees from Ethiopia who’d been living in refugee camps in Somalia, escaping the Ogaden war of ’77-’78. And the U.S. government requires that if they’re gonna ship food into a situation, there must be food monitors to count the bags and make sure that all the food, or as much as possible, was getting to the people who were supposed to be getting it.
So you were keeping everybody honest, essentially.
Well that’s what I thought. I took the job fairly seriously, and I got a really nice house in Somalia on the beach and was in charge of the refugee camps’ food, as a U.S. government employee. And it didn’t take me too long to figure out that about two-thirds of the food was going missing, and it wasn’t just the food. I mean trucks would leave The port and disappear. They’d never find the trucks again. Or {the food} was getting to the camps, and a lot of it was getting stolen in the camps. {Later, during the U.S. intervention}, there were almost no cases of private stores being looted, private trucks being attacked by gangs. It was all aid convoys. Because people’s attitude was, “They’re gonna take it over to those people, we might as well take it.” And it was also a big scam because there weren’t nearly as many refugees in the camps as {the NGOs} said. And I wrote all these reports, and after a while realized what my job really was, which was to write the damn reports and shut up. The law required that the reports be written, but nobody was gonna do anything about the reports. I wrote a long memo to the U.S. Agency for International Development {USAID} right before I quit, which I quote in the book. And I just said, this is being manipulated for political purposes and they’re not necessary and they’re hurting people. They’re turning what were refugee camps into pounds that were being used cynically by the government to move various ethnic groups around.
In order for an NGO or a governmental organization like USAID even to be in country, there has to be the permission of the local government. Are you assigned some parallel relationship with an existing Somali government organization?
One of the things that happens when you’re doing aid work in a country like Somalia- when it did have a government-you had to deal with the ministries of planning, agriculture, finance, any number of ministries. The idea was to make aid money flow to as many places as possible, which gave them more opportunities to skim it, which was the point as far as they were concerned. But the aid money kept coming in because the U.S. government had a political and strategic interest in Somalia: It was all about a military base in northern Somalia, and so the U.S. was not gonna tell Siad Barre, the dictator, that he could not have his food aid. So all this aid money came through from the U.S. government that was subcontracted to NGOs, largely CARE. But what became obvious was that they were delivering through refugee camps that should not have existed. There was no reason for the refugee camps to be in existence at that time.
You move [humanitarian aid] into a poor country, and it represents a lot: money, power and control. You’ve gotta go through the local leaders; you gotta deal with them, you gotta let them take their cut. Somebody always gets rich off a famine.
The conditions that made it necessary to have the camps no longer existed so they should have been shut down.
They should have been forcibly shut down by 1981, when there was peace. But there was a memo that I found from CARE, dated ’85 or ’86, where they boasted they finally had the food-delivery mechanism running smoothly. So this is like five years later, and they’re worried about making the system work, not about taking care of these refugees and getting them out of the camps. And anyone who’s ever been in a refugee camp knows that they’re very politically charged places. Refugee problems are political problems. NGOs look at them as logistical problems. If you’re an NGO, a refugee camp presents you with [issues such as], how do you move the food, how do you do medical care, how do you do this well so there’s more money, more money, more personnel, more Land Cruisers, we need more trucks, we need more Land Cruisers and by the way we need more Land Cruisers. And that’s how NGOs think about these problems. They don’t think about the political problems: How do we get the government to shut these things down? And then the refugee camps in Somalia, as in other places, also became armed camps [for] the Western Somalia Liberation Front, that was supposed to be fighting for freedom from Ethiopia but was essentially a government hit squad. The camps were put in strategic positions on land generally inhabited by clans that the president was having political problems with. There was one clan that was the president’s sworn enemy in this one town, and he literally displaced the entire town with refugees from the Ogaden clan-his mother’s clan-and all this was assisted by NGOs that at first didn’t realize what they were doing. But anyone who was paying attention would’ve known. And there were memos flying around, some of which are in the book, that show people did know that the situation was completely political and that what they were doing was feeding the problem, and still nobody did anything about closing the refugee camps until 1989. And by then it was too late-the government was collapsing, and Somalia had been pushed over the edge by these political problems caused in part by the refugee camps.
The most devastating parts of your book concern two organizations which I think most people probably feel pretty benevolently toward: Save the Children and CARE. When they go to people in the U.S. to advertise for their programs, they show a single image, almost always a hungry child.
Starving baby pictures, yeah.
What you’re saying is that if the camera pulls back from the starving baby, there are other people standing around.
I was here {in New York} during the beginning of the Somalia crisis {in the summer of 1992}, and I saw on TV all these people starving to death. {Researching the book,} I made a point of going to Reuters in Nairobi where they have all the raw footage. I watched the entire tapes, from beginning to end. Hours and hours of tape. And what you see is the camera on The starving baby, which was the footage edited into the news program, but then the camera pans away or pulls back, and you see there’s people going about their lives. There’s people driving cars, smoking cigarettes, and so on. What you can do with a camera in a refugee situation is you can compress the hunger. You can package it, frame it, and it always looks worse than it is. It looks like you’re taking part in the liberation of Buchenwald, when in fact it’s a lot more complicated. The raw footage shows, or if you’re there-and I’ve been in numerous famine situations over the years-you realize that it’s all part of an economy, that there are people who are eating. And it becomes very clear that this is not a food shortage; this is a political problem or an economic problem-that’s why people are starving to death. And that’s more complicated than the message these organizations drive home, which is “This baby is starving; send money and we’ll bring him food.” The starving baby picture is a lie. Which isn’t to say there aren’t people starving in these situations; there always are and sometimes lots of them.
Standing in the background perhaps are militia members who skim off the top of any food aid that arrives, and village elders who themselves are tied up with the government and make sure some of the aid is funnelled to the government.
Oh, sure. We tend to look at this as surplus food. You move that into a poor country, and it represents a lot: money, power and control. It’s like, you want to do business on the docks of Brooklyn, you gotta know who to pay off. And it’s the same thing in any of these situations: You’ve gotta go through The local leaders; you gotta deal with them, you gotta let them take their cut. Somebody always gets rich off a famine. There’s never been a famine situation that didn’t make somebody rich, and it’s not always just local people on the ground; there’s foreign contractors and shipping companies. Most of the money that goes into it ends up back in the U.S. in the form of cash, contracts and salaries.
In order to do humanitarian aid work in Somalia or Kenya or Liberia or Rwanda, you inevitably have to help one side in a civil war against the other.
You do. Biafra was the beginning; that was the real awakening to people, when the Nigerian government starved people to death in Biafra on purpose. And groups like the Red Cross wouldn’t go work in Biafra because they couldn’t cross the Nigerian government. And that’s always gonna be the case. No rebel group’s gonna let you cross its lines so you can go help people who are supportive of the government, and vice versa-even if those people are starving to death.
So the possibility of doing aid work for the benefit of the common people in a situation of civil war is almost nil.
It is nil. You can’t do it. You have to make a moral decision about who’s gonna get fed, or at least admit that you’re getting involved politically But very few charities are willing to do that. The other side of it is, if there isn’t a war situation, you’re always supporting the status quo-the government in power. If you’re doing aid work in Kenya, you’re supporting the government of Kenya, which itself is the reason for most of the problems in Kenya. They’re the ones who are choking off farmers and not allowing them to sell grains or coffee or whatever to the highest bidder. They’re the ones who are stifling the entire economy.
So Save the Children makes no mention of the political situation in countries where the aid eventually is sent. Do you get the feeling the NGOs themselves carry the same what-me-worry attitude on the ground in the countries they serve?
Well, there’s a huge division in aid organizations between the people on the ground and the people at headquarters, always. I’ve been in a hundred situations where I’m in a country and I’m with a bunch of aid workers at night, and we’re usually drinking after a hard, hot day, and somebody starts talking about maybe we shouldn’t be here, maybe we’re just fucking the situation up more than it already is, we’re not doing anything good, we’re making things worse. Bur they get up in the morning and go to work anyway. That message never gets to the top. The sense of ambiguity and complexity of it-people in headquarters don’t want to hear it. They have other concerns, which are more projects to keep paying salaries at headquarters and let’s put a happy face on it for the public. And they’re right in that you can’t sit down with the public and have a complicated appeal. You have Sally Struthers with a little baby saying, “65¢ a day to save this baby’s life.” That’s pretty direct. It’s a lie, but it’s direct. You’re not gonna be able to discuss the political situation in Zaire: People in Zaire are suffering because of this, and in another country for another reason-which is the truth.
In your book, you describe a real unwillingness to accept that there is-in what appears to our eyes to be chaos-social order, a very sophisticated social order. And when the aid organizations come in, they ignore that social order and simply dictate terms as if what they’ve come into is abject chaos.
Yeah, the aid organizations do what they do wherever they are. They know how to set up refugee camps, so they do it. And they also horribly underestimate the local people, the skills and abilities of the local people, and the ability of the people to save themselves and to take care of themselves. If I learned anything in the Peace Corps, it was that people basically know what they’re doing. Ads that we see for these organizations tend to give the impression that all these Africans are a bunch of infants. That they’re gonna starve to death if we don’t send a bunch of 25-yearold volunteers over there to take care of them. The ads really rely on something I find somewhat racist. The whole aid industry is built on this conceit that Americans can go into a village of Africa and, by virtue of some innate quality of American-ness, have something to offer people, something that you can teach people there. As if these people couldn’t survive without you. And that’s sort of the hidden attitude when I get these questions: Aren’t these people gonna suffer if we pull the aid organizations out? And I always have to say, “Do you really think people can’t take care of themselves?” Where do people get the idea that Africans are gonna really suffer if a bunch of American volunteers go home? It’s an absurd notion.
Ads that we see for these organizations tend to give the impression that all these Africans are a bunch of infants. That they’re going to starve to death if we don’t send a bunch of 25-year-old volunteers over there to take care of them.
What about the programs? Building schools, teaching people how to…
Development is done in terms of projects. Projects are designed by accountants. If you read a project proposal, it says it’s a three-year project: In the first six months we’re gonna show this, after a year we’ll be at this point and we’ll have spent this much money. Anyone who’s been overseas working knows that this is not development. This has nothing to do with helping people. It’s about building stuff. But economic development has nothing to do with putting pipes in the ground or building buildings. Economic development is a way of thinking about your resources, and this is something that’s not going to change because a bunch of Western volunteers are going over there. You’re dealing with massive economic problems in countries that have no economies for the most part, countries that are paying out more than their GNP to the International Monetary Fund. By us sending volunteers in there to take over social services, we’re really not making things any better for anyone.
The blanket response to your book is, “Sure, in any enterprise there are bad apples, bad projects, some who are unwilling to see the negative ramifications of what they’re doing. But we shouldn’t abandon the whole aid project just because there are some bad apples here and there, in fact, most of the people in aid are well-intentioned, good-meaning types.”
I think it’s exactly the opposite. Every organization has some projects that are working well in some places, but I would say that most aid projects are absolute failures, complete wastes of money that succeed primarily at keeping Westerners employed. And the proof of that is if you look at the long term. I mean, you can always show that an aid project has succeeded over six months. If your goal in an aid project is to put pipes in the ground, then you can say, “Look, there are pipes in the ground; that’s success.” What you don’t do is go back in five years and see what’s happened to those pipes. Well, what happened to it? A couple of tough guys in the village came and took over the water system, and they’re selling water to people. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. The poor people in the village aren’t getting any water, and they’re still walking down to the damn river and drinking awful water, because you’re not looking at the political context into which you put those pipes. You build a road somewhere and the people who benefit are the people who have cars. But if you’re shortsighted enough to think that the goal of the project is to get the road built, then you’re going to look at the project as a success, and you’re not going to look at the overall damages and the effect that project has two, five, 10 years down the line.
Are the aid organizations going to say, “OK, now we understand that we can’t just look at the amount of pipe footage in the ground?”
No, because they don’t have a time frame that’s long enough. It’s the kind of industry where personnel are changing very quickly, where there’s always a new theory of development, a new way of doing things. When I first started out, everybody was talking about meeting basic human needs. So we put pipes in the ground and said we were meeting basic human needs. Within a few years, the new talk was about “women in development,” and we were putting the same damn pipes in the ground and talking about how we were helping women in development. Then you had “sustainable development”-all this crap is just theoretical jargon marketed as a way of collecting funds. You go to a CARE office some place and ask to see a 15-year-old project, and they’re probably not gonna know where it is because you’re not gonna be able to find someone who’s been in the country for more than a couple of years. I started off on this road very uneasy about what was going on, and I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me, and it took time to find the theory that explains all of this. And that is: You have to view them as businesses, as contractors. And basically CARE is not a charity, CARE is a corporation that delivers U.S. government surplus to poor countries, and we might be better 0ff just sending it with a shipping company. It’d be a lot cheaper.
Well, fine, hospitals are for-profit companies, too, and they make people well.
Yeah, and that’s the difference. Aid is about people here getting their hands on government money here. Seventy to 80 percent of all aid money stays in the U.S. It goes to salaries, to U.S. corporations; that’s what it’s about. There are companies like Brown & Root-which is owned by a company whose chairman is {Secretary of Defense under Bush during the Somalia intervention} Dick Cheney, by the way-made hundreds of millions of dollars off the Somalia intervention. And they’re in Bosnia now as well. The list of private companies making money is huge. We don’t look at CARE in that way. We’re not willing to say, CARE is making money from this as well. In fact, they are. They’re paying their salaries, they’re expanding, they’re hiring new people, making capital investments-they’re just not paying taxes on it.
Are sponsorship organizations by definition a fraud?
Any sponsorship is completely bogus. I just saw an ad for Christian Children’s Fund on TV a while ago, and it says, “Little Imelda would’ve starved to death if not for a lady in Seattle who pledged 65 or 70 cents a day” or whatever the fuck it is. And I looked at that and said, “That’s a lie.” Because it’s not like a child is waiting to get into a program, a child is sponsored, a child moves into the program. That’s not how it works. There’s a whole chapter in the book on STC as a sponsorship organization that shows that there were villages where they raised $10,000 in sponsorship money and spent only $400, on nothing of any consequence, and that’s pretty much how sponsorship works. If they can’t get grant money to do a project, they’re not really gonna accomplish anything.
Doesn’t it seem to you that these charitable organizations come into a country like Somalia or into poor areas of the U.S. offering the promise of new schools or better health care or food or whatever, and in so doing, they sort of exonerate us from having to worry about the fact that our government doesn’t care for the needs of a certain percentage of its population?
Or our government is supporting a dictator of a country who’s ripping off the national treasury for billions of dollars. The president of Kenya is a billionaire. He’s stolen more money than all of these organizations are ever going to bring in. He gets to play with these NGOs.
But the presence of Western NGOs means that governments don’t have to carry out the obligations that governments should have to carry out.
Yeah, it lets us off the hook. “We’re doing something. We’re building schools over there. That’s our obligation to this country”-when we’re pursuing macroeconomic policies that are causing these problems to begin with, such as massive structural adjustments and debt burdens. That’s really the problem, and that amount of money dwarfs the money coming in through these charities. You have to think about development in terms of larger economic issues. That’s where the problems are.
What would happen if these aid organizations pulled out of these countries?
I think if all of them went out of business today, there would be very few people who would be any worse for it, and a great number of people would be better off. People know what’s best for themselves. They can do what they need to do. In most of these countries-I’m thinking of Africa-people are not developing economically because they’re not being allowed to. They’re being oppressed politically If you look at the development that’s taken place in Asia in the past 15 or 20 years, none of that can be attributed to foreign aid. It’s all investment, it all came about through change in government policies that allowed people to invest their money. I had a friend who had a business in Nairobi a number of years ago who said he wanted to keep the business small because if you stuck your head up too high they’d chop it off. The president of Kenya basically stole most of the successful businesses in The country, and now owns them. That’s not the kind of policy that’s going to foster large economic growth. And if the Asian model is going to apply to Africa, it’s got to start slowly, and it has to start with good government. And to a certain extent, NGOs and aid organizations in these countries now help fortify a lot of bad governments.
In the end, is there any role for NGOs or charitable organizations in the developing world at all?
I was invited by our Oromo brothers and sisters through the Oromo-American Citizens Council to speak at the Second Annual International Oromo Human Rights Conference on “Conflict in East Africa and the Current Human Rights Situation.” I was to address the subject of human rights violations in Ethiopia with a special focus on the Anuak as well as to assess the risk of genocide and further human rights violations against other ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa.
I was very pleased to participate because I am fully committed to speak up for the betterment of the Oromo, whom I know have been the targets of countless human rights abuses for many years, based on their ethnicity and the desire of each consecutive government to subdue and control this largest of ethnic groups, accounting for 40% of all Ethiopians. These abuses include extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, disappearances, false imprisonment and threats and intimidation along with more subtle forms of repression reflected in the lack of health services, infra-structure and access to economic, political and educational opportunities.
I was very aware that like the Anuak in the Gambella region, our Oromo neighbors, whose land nearly surrounds us, have suffered so greatly that many Oromos have formed a liberation front and have sought for their independence from Ethiopia in self-protection and in a desire for self-determination. Even though I personally believe in a non-violent solution to the crisis we face, I also would have been very willing to come if the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) had been the ones to invite me to speak as I understand how committed they are in working for the betterment of the Oromo after suffering so greatly and for so many years—first under Haille Selassie, then Mengistu and now under Meles Zenawi! This kind of government that destroys large segments of its own civil society in order to advance their own self-interests, cannot continue and we must look for immediate solutions.
I thank the Oromo political and civic groups for giving me the privilege and honor of presenting my own views on how I believe this war for freedom and justice can be fought. As I make my comments, I do not speak as an expert, an elder or as an Oromo scholar who has been studying this for years. I know that some of you may disagree with me, but this should not interfere with us continuing to struggle together to find common ground where we can work together. We must recognize the truth that as humans, none of us is ever 100% right—only God can be that. I accept that limitation myself so that I may also be open to others as well, just like I am asking of you.
We can easily agree when the Oromo tell us that they have been colonized, hated and enslaved within Ethiopia. We can also agree when the Oromo tell us that they have been denied their rights and called Galla—or slaves, across the country, just like the Anuak or the other darker-skinned ethnic Ethiopian people have been called Baria—or slaves. It is not even necessary to debate this as everyone knows it and these people know it better because they are the ones who have felt the pain! However, if we focus on the past too much, we can never move on as we will never forgive or let go of many justifiable reasons for our anger.
On the other hand, if we forget our past, we will repeat it as we will never learn from our mistakes. Both can lead to a destructive cycle of oppressing or being oppressed—exactly what we have been living with for many years and centuries. Neither option will ever free us. Instead, the question for today is—how can we move on without forgetting, finally getting out of this downward cycle and moving on? I think this conference is a good starting place to have this discussion and this is why I look forward to talking more with you.
After I arrived in the Twin Cities, I met for supper with a number of leaders in the Oromo community, along with non-Oromo westerners. It also was my first opportunity to meet the former President of Ethiopia, Negasso Gidada, an Oromo himself who grew up in Dembedollo about 45 kilometers from Gambella and who is now an elected independent parliamentarian from that area. We all talked, not about politics, but about life in general.
The next day, we went to the rally—“Oromia Shall Be Free,” sponsored by the International Oromo Youth Association with support from other groups as well. The purpose of the rally, as they stated in their literature, “was to address the injustices and hidden ethnic cleansing directed at the Oromo” and “to get fair and balanced media attention on the situation of Oromo refugees in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.” When I arrived at the rally, close to a thousand Oromos were already walking by the Minnesota State Capital building.
Several things really struck me. First of all, I was impressed with the number of people and their signs. The signs read: “No Justice in Ethiopia,” “Ethiopian Government Persecuting Oromo,” “Genocide of Oromo,” “No Peace in Ethiopia,” “No Freedom in Ethiopia,” “Meles is a Terrorist and Should Not Be Supported by the US Government,” “TPLF Government Persecuting Oromo Students,” and many, many more signs. I had seen many similar signs at other rallies by Ethiopians in Canada, in the United States and in Europe, but what was very absent was any sight of the Ethiopian flag, even though Ethiopia was repeatedly referred to in the signs as not having peace, justice or freedom.
Instead, most everyone had an Oromia flag and most signs were written in English. In addition, I was struck by the fact that there were only Oromo present at the rally. I did not see anyone from any other Ethiopian ethnic groups. As the majority of Oromo youth leaders began to speak, it was mostly in Oromiya, but I could still understand parts of it, but not as easily as I understand Amharic. However, because this is the language of the majority ethnic group of Ethiopia and because the Oromo people are our neighbors to Gambella, this language is high on my list to learn and to master in the future.
Following the speeches from the youth leaders, one of the majority leaders of the Minnesota State Legislature spoke. He said, and I paraphrase, “We will work with you to make sure that justice comes to your homeland. We hear your voice. The people of Minnesota will stand by you until you gain freedom and justice in your homeland, just like you enjoy here… We don’t want the Oromo to only have peace and justice in Minnesota or in the US, but we want you to have peace and justice in your home country of Ethiopia.” At this point, a good number of people in the audience corrected him and said, “Don’t say Ethiopia, say Oromia!” He then corrected himself and said, “Africa,” but never said Oromia.
I then was introduced to speak. The following is a synopsis of my two addresses, the first at the rally and the second as a panel member at the meeting. I have also included some additional thoughts I wanted to clarify. “Thanks to the Oromia community for inviting me to say a few words. I came all the way from Canada to be here with you today. Some of you may wonder why I am here. The reason is because of the injustice in Ethiopia and above all, I am here as one of you—to be with my people. As I have said many times, you are my people because when I say “my people,” it does not mean only Anuak, but it means all the people of Ethiopia.
Most of you may not know how I got involved in human rights. It was not a plan, but it was a reaction to a horrific event when the Ethiopian government defense forces killed Anuak people in the Gambella region. I was very close to many of those who were massacred and since this time, I have been compelled to do what I can to change the system that is responsible for these atrocities, the current EPRDF government of Ethiopia!
Many Anuak have fled for safety to Sudan or Kenya, but the truth is, we are citizens of a country that does not have the right to kill and oppress my fellow Anuak or any other of its citizens and I want to do my best to make sure they did not die in vain. Why is this my approach?
Because they had lived in Gambella and then were killed in Gambella! Where is Gambella? It is inside of Ethiopia. Who killed them? The government of Ethiopia! So today, all of you who are here to protest the killing of your people, I ask you—where were your people killed? In Oromia. Where is the Oromia region? It is in Ethiopia. Who killed them? The government of Ethiopia!
Whether we like it or not, the killing, suppression and oppression of our people within Ethiopia has united us as one against a government that is killing Oromo, Anuak, Banishangul, Welayta, Shekicho, Tigrayans, Amhara, Afar, Sidamo, Ogadenes and we can work together not only against the evil system held up by the current EPRDF government, but also to prevent others just like it from rising up, believing it is “their turn to dominate the rest of us.”
After all, Woyane are not only Tigrayans, but there are Woyane from every Ethiopian ethnic group. The Woyane have succeeded in unifying, much better than have we, but for all the wrong reasons! For instance, there are Oromo Woyane, Anuak Woyane, Amhara Woyane, Sidamo Woyane, Ogaden Woyane and so forth who then rule over their own people as members of the EPRDF. The same thing was accomplished under the previous government of Mengistu. The Dergue was portrayed as being dominated by Amhara, but in fact, there were Dergue “puppets” and sympathizers from most every ethnic group who were then used to advance the control of Mengistu.
On the other hand, we know that there are many Tigrayans, Amhara, Afar, Sidamo, Banishangul, Ogadenens and so on in each of these and other groups who would make excellent neighbors, community members, friends or even family members let alone colleagues in this struggle for freedom, justice, equality and peace!
But some of us have never been even introduced to each other before, like those in the Ogaden or Afar regions who did not even know the Anuak existed! They are more like us than those who call themselves Anuak or Oromo, but perpetrate injustice against us as Woyane members.
If Woyane can unify, why can the rest of us not unify, especially when we consider how our blood is already mixed through centuries of intermarriage with many in our Ethiopian or even African or Middle Eastern families! Why should we not learn from our oppressors who seek supporters from every ethnic group in order to gain power and control over us! The Woyane are working very hard to make us forget that the blood we will pass on to our future generations cannot be tested for its ethnicity—it will only show itself as being the blood of humanity!
For example, here I am as an Anuak, speaking to Oromo about an issue very critical to both of us—human rights abuses being perpetrated against us by the government of Ethiopia and its supporters. If we were in Ethiopia, what we are doing right now would be impossible. Our unity of purpose would be very threatening to the government and they would want to stop us. Some of us, regardless of whether we were Anuak or Oromo, would not make it home from here. By now, many might be dead or arrested because Ethiopia is not like Minnesota. Ethiopia is a country where you are not allowed to peacefully protest like you are now doing in front of the capital building of this great state.
Brother and sister, we have more in common to unite us than do we have differences that divide us. If we concentrate on that commonality, we could free our people and our country. For so long, the people of Oromia have suffered a great deal and the suffering of the Oromos did not just start after the May election of 2005. In fact, the struggle of the Oromo started before I was even born, in 1972, when the OLF was formed as a way to resist the human rights abuses against your people being perpetrated by the government. Now it is under the government of Meles.
An example of injustice against the Oromo even came out of the genocide of the Anuak when six Oromo soldiers were falsely blamed for the massacre of the Anuak in December of 2003 even though they were stationed no place near to Gambella until months after the killing when they were moved to the region. They were considered discardable scapegoats for the EPRDF. I was incensed at this injustice. In addition to the Oromo being falsely blamed, so were our Gambella brothers and sisters, the Nuer, and even other Anuak when the blame should rest with the EPRDF!
I know about your suffering and that you are fighting against its root cause—the injustice being perpetrated against you by the EPRDF. So are the Anuak doing the same as are countless other individual groups. I want you to know that in your fight that you need not fight alone. I will fight along with you, at your side. However, we need more Ethiopians to come along side of us to fight with us against this injustice that is oppressing, suppressing and killing Ethiopians all over the country.
Our history indicates that we have been isolated from each other, fighting the same opponent, but doing it alone. We have been doing it haphazardly and mostly ineffectually, from many various fronts. The evidence of our frustration is in the many years of our struggle. As long as we fight our battles alone, we will not win the war. Instead, we are not only prolonging the suffering of our people, but we are actually contributing to the destruction of everyone who lives in Ethiopia. We know that what this government fears the most is unity within our ethnic groups and unity among differing ethnic groups.
Think what could happen if the Oromo, being the majority ethnic group, became united as one so you could speak with one voice. You could possibly bring this government to the end by yourselves. However, think about what could happen if the Oromos joined with other ethnic groups! Our victory could be more certain
than ever. Think what it will take to sustain that victory for the future generations who we would want to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors. To win such a battle for lasting justice, we have to first think differently and then do things differently. This is what I’m going to talk about now.
When the Anuak were killed in 2003, most of the Anuak who lived in Minnesota came to protest in front of the Minnesota State Capital, just where you are standing today. The truth is, there were no Oromo or any other Ethiopians from other ethnic groups standing by their side. Today, when you are rallying here, I see that most all of you are Oromo. Yet, we know that as we speak, others—from most every Ethiopian ethnic group—are being killed today such as our Ogaden brothers and sisters. After we rally today, we will go home, but tomorrow the Ogadenis may be standing in our place—alone, without support from others suffering in the country.
A series of protests by individual groups will not have close to the same impact that we could accomplish if we were all standing here together at the same time—united by our common humanity rather than divided by our ethnicity or from what region we come. We should be united by our Ethiopian-ness and our African-ness!
I know that some of you here might not be happy about what I am saying because from looking out at you, I cannot see one single Ethiopian flag, but only Oromia flags. There is nothing wrong with the Oromia flag at all, but we are missing the big picture by not having an Ethiopian flag here. Even if Oromia some day is going to become its own country, until it does, it is still within the borders of Ethiopia. To those people who do not know where Oromia is and what this flag represents, it will be very confusing, especially as you urge westerners to replace your country name, Ethiopia, with Oromia while still carrying placards that call for freedom in Ethiopia.
I am not disclaiming the horrific injustices that have been done to the Oromo people, but there is another way we can approach this. An example is to have an Oromo flag as well as an Ethiopian flag for I believe that what has happened in Ethiopia cannot be solved by isolating ourselves from Ethiopia as a whole. Ethiopia is like a hut in which we live. If we get hurt inside our hut, we do not have to burn down the entire hut or abandon it, but instead, we work to change or move the thing that hurt you inside the hut.
In other words, we do not have to give up on Ethiopia itself, especially now when so many within the country are calling for substantial change. If Oromos add their voice to that of many others, Oromos and others may be able to accomplish shared goals that would otherwise be impossible.
Admittedly, we have a lot of work to do to change our situation, but the spirit of discontent is spreading across the country and many are motivated in ways never seen before. We need to work hand in hand with other Ethiopians in acknowledging either the wrongful acts committed against us or the wrongful acts we have committed to others so we can reconcile and live in harmony with each other. Most of us have good reasons to run away and isolate ourselves, but is that the best plan?
For instance, when I was in Ethiopia, I could not count how many times I have been called Baria—or slaves but that did not lead me to go somewhere where I would not be called Baria. Just because I am called Baria, should I give up my rightful place and run away? I say no. The reason is that I believe I should instead educate those people who do not know the equality of all humanity and that degrading others comes out of their own sense of inadequacy, not mine.
As I have said before, a garden with only one color of flower will never be as beautiful as a garden with a rainbow of colors. I must make an effort to win their minds in this way. This is the same in America where we have African Americans who were enslaved, but they wanted to figure out how to free themselves and yet how to continue to live together. The problem of Ethiopia is not with the flag, the soil, the mountain, desert, or the hills; it is with the thinking and actions of Ethiopians who should not be able to bully everyone else like an abusive husband or father who pushes his family out of their legitimate home. Such an abuser needs to be stopped and held accountable.
It is time for the oppressed people to confront the bullies and exploiters of Ethiopia, no matter what ethnic group, region or political party they represent, even our own. Unfortunately, it is easy for the oppressed to become the next oppressors. Instead, we need to address the root problem of injustice by creating an attitude that values and includes all people and groups as valuable members of our society. To do this, we must uphold the rule of law and policies that protect us from ourselves. We must understand the preciousness of each person inside or outside of our groups while acknowledging the potential for evil and selfishness within each of us so that we can more honestly, fairly and equitably administer a society that provides for the protection and rights of all people and groups as equal under the law.
To my brother and sister, some of you may not like what I just said, but that is okay. I feel that the only way we can improve this situation is to be honest with our ideas and to not avoid having these controversial discussions. Through them we might come up with better solutions. As we do, let us love and embrace each other as God would have us do. What Ethiopia needs is not more hatred or division, but more love, respect and acceptance. We have much to correct and much to forgive.
We have many damaged relationships that we can repair if we are willing to start reaching out to those people who have hurt us or put us down or to those whom we have hurt. I have been hearing more and more people agree that what we need is a new Ethiopia—a better Ethiopia than the Ethiopia of today. To build this kind of country, like I have already said, t will require a new thinking and some compromise. Each of us will have to give up some of the things after which we have strongly sought.
For instance, the world we live in has become more of a shared world where the walls between groups are being broken my shared economic interests, improved technology and increased communication with the world outside our national borders. Many are forming new coalitions and partnerships for their mutual benefit.
We must ask ourselves whether it is in our best interests to further isolate ourselves from others. For self-protection it may be better in order to survive, but if we can join together and correct what is threatening our survival, we may be able to come up with something far superior to retreating inward.
We can learn from America where fifty states have become one country or from Europe where many countries that used to fight and kill each other have now become a union with a shared common values, interests and even a common money—the euro. Together, as united people groups, they have become a louder and more powerful voice in the world. I believe that the Ethiopia of tomorrow must be along these lines. That Ethiopia must be one where no one ethnic group claims they are more Ethiopian than the other. Any who live within the borders have equal claim based on the Ethiopian soil upon which they live, not because they are a member of any one dominant ethnic group like Amhara, Tigray or Oromo. We are all Ethiopians. We are all Africans. We are all human beings. We should be concentrating on that.
Our action should emphasize not only overcoming ethnic divisions but as well substituting a new identity a Pan-African bond whereby all peoples consider themselves as being inextricably linked to the earth of Africa.
It is Mother Africa which defines us and gives us a sense of place not the lines on a map demarcating Ethiopia. Until people shed the nation-state reference in Africa, divide and rule and playing off one group against another will prevail. After all, original man and woman came from Africa and then peopled the world. We are not Ethiopians, rather we are Africans. What we are seeking is not a new regime but for the first time an African status independent of any particular government or nation-state. It is our African-ness which unites us not the lines of Ethiopia on a map. Our leaders should not divide Africans from themselves. To be African is to be unified automatically.
If we want to survive as a people, we have to put our humanity before our ethnicity. This is the only way we can become greater people and a greater country. To accomplish this, you have to start by loving and accepting yourselves as God loves you so that you can better love your families, your communities, your ethnic group, your country and all of humanity as equally worthy of God’s love and care. We can defeat all this injustice only with one weapon and that weapon is love.
Know that others may not understand this principle and instead believe that in order to survive, that they must dominate others for their own self-interests so as to fill their empty hearts and souls with things that will never satisfy. Instead, we are called to love God and to love others as we do ourselves. In the future, will we cry only for ourselves or will we join with others in their grief, helping them to overcome the source of their suffering?
I believe this is the only way to stop a government who triumphs over us by singling each of us out, fighting us one at a time? Instead, we must join together, caring for each other. This is what Ethiopia lacks. This is what Africa lacks. Go home and make a difference in someone else’s life. This is a duty that God has given to each of us. An individual acts can add up to big actions for change. Be activists and agents for positive change. Be informed and challenged the evil system of destruction. Look forward with hope. Be inspired and truest the Movement for New Ethiopia.
This world is temporary. Do not live as if it is the end. Show others how to live life well. This world has so much injustice, but few who are willing to become fighters for justice, not only for themselves, but for others as well. You have a choice how you will live during the limited days God has given to you. Will you continue to be divided and to have hatred towards your Ethiopian brothers and sisters or will you use these days to make a positive difference to our children and grandchildren, trusting in God to guide you?
Africa is known as the Dark Continent where we kill each other in vengeance for our suffering or where we exploit our neighbor when given our turn at power. At the time of the massacre of the Anuak, I was living in Canada and had started the Gambella Development Agency in an effort to help bring new development to the Gambella region. In addition to relatives and friends, many of those Anuak killed were people with whom I had been closely working.
When I called the US State Department to alert them to what was going on, the woman who answered passed off my urgent request for help as she told me, “People are been killed in Africa all the time! Africans are killing each other all over the continent! We can’t do anything!” She then hung up the phone. Seven minutes later, I called her again and she said, “Why are you calling me again?
I can tell by your accent that you’re the same person.” I told her there were US citizens in the midst of the killing. All of a sudden, her attitude totally changed and she was asking me to help her locate all the necessary information to send in US Marines who later intervened on their behalf of these American citizens!
Now, we can be upset with her focus on the citizens of her country—Anuak Americans—or with her negative impression of Africa, but rather than waste our time responding to that, we must each ask ourselves some questions. How are we contributing to prolonging this image of Africans as being people who kill or are killed, who exploit or are exploited, who oppress or are oppressed?
More importantly, we must ask ourselves how we can stop it. Let us be people who God can use to change Ethiopia into a new Ethiopia and a new Africa. We cannot wait and hope someone from the outside will do it for us. It is up to us, with God’s help!
We can learn a lot from the biblical story, the children of Israel are in exile in Babylon, defeated and demoralized. Nehemiah goes to King Artaxerxes of Babylon, the foreign king under whose rule the children of Israel have had to live. Nehemiah reports,”… So the king said to me,’ Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my ancestors’ graves, lies waste and its gates have been destroyed by fire?’” Nehemiah asks permission to rebuild Jerusalem.
Upon receiving it, he goes to Jerusalem and gathers the Survivors still in and around the city. “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem (Ethiopia and Africa of today) lies in ruins with its gates burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem (Ethiopia and Africa), so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.” “So they committed themselves to the common good”. Nehemiah 1-2.
This is the prophetic call after the exile. The Jewish people are dispersed. They have no land and no home; this is the beginning of the rebuilding of their ancient city. What is the relationship to our situation in Ethiopia or Africa? Ethiopians or Africans have sacred land and home overflowing with brutality, hatred, lies, death, pain and destruction and this is the beginning of the rebuilding of their ancient land of Africa, the birth place of humanity.
I leave you (my fellows Ethiopians) with this challenge. How should you and I respond for the betterment of all the people of Ethiopia so justice overflows from East to West, from South to North parts of this ancient land of Ethiopia and then comes back to bless and support us all? The choice is ours and the time is now! May God bless the Oromo people and enable you to become soldiers of love, justice, equality, peace and unity!
Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia walked through Manhattan on a sweltering afternoon, a slight man in a simple khaki outfit, drawing attention only because two burly bodyguards cleared a path for him. Gebrselassie’s trademark smile, unwavering in yesterday’s heat and commotion, erupted in laughter when two passersby wondered aloud if perhaps he was the president of an African country.
If Gebrselassie had crossed town unescorted, the man universally regarded as the greatest distance runner would have turned few heads. His star will only shine come tomorrow when he re-enters the world he dominates, running in the NYC Half-Marathon. It will be the first time the 34-year-old Gebrselassie will run in New York.
The star-studded men’s field will also include the former New York Marathon champion Hendrik Ramaala and the three-time Boston Marathon champion Robert Cheruiyot.
“New York is New York,” Gebrselassie said later, laughing again, ensconced in an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem. “I come here and I wonder when it will become quiet here. It is never quiet.”
Luring Gebrselassie into the din from his home in Ethiopia was an eight-year quest by New York Road Runners. The group’s president, Mary Wittenberg, hopes he will someday join the field of its biggest event, the New York Marathon. This year, the Half-Marathon fit into Gebrselassie’s schedule as he prepares for the Berlin Marathon in September.
“There is Haile as an athlete and Haile as a man, and he is a superstar in both regards,” Wittenberg said. “He is the best ambassador for our sport. He can take over a race and he just fills up a room.”
Gebrselassie’s storied career includes 22 world-record performances, two Olympic gold medals in the 10,000 meters and 107 major-race victories. Recently, Gebrselassie has turned his talents to longer distances, winning three of six marathons since 2005 and winning every one of his seven half-marathons. His world record in that event was surpassed earlier this year by Samuel Wanjiru, a 20-year-old from Kenya.
But Gebrselassie has little intention of resting on his résumé or giving in to a younger generation. He surprised the track world in May with a last-minute entry into a 10,000-meter race in Hengelo, the Netherlands, where he finished fifth and became the first man over 30 to break 27 minutes. He ran it in 26:52. The first time he broke 27 minutes, he was 22.
“Everybody was surprised,” Gebrselassie said. “People say, ‘You are too old.’ But I’m not old. I feel still young.”
Gebrselassie believes he could still dominate his old track distances, except the intensity of that training led to a series of injuries.
He was forced to withdraw from the London Marathon in April after 18 miles when he had an allergic reaction to the pollen in the air. He said had never had an allergy attack before.
“It’s not an easy thing,” Gebrselassie said. “In the marathon you are running against the distance. It’s 42K. You never know where the problem you will have. In the 10 and the 5,000, it’s just competing against either the time or the athletes. But the marathon, you compete against the distance itself.”
Gebrselassie has encountered no such problems in half-marathons, building an undefeated streak, and he is now the target of a strong international field in New York. The 13.1-mile race starts in Central Park, races through Times Square and ends in Battery Park.
“He is the greatest distance runner who ever lived,” said Peter Gilmore, the top American entrant. “I’ve never raced against him. It’s going to be cool.”
Gebrselassie, long accustomed to the awe he has inspired, refuses to stop finding challenges. He said he picked his races for the chance to do something special, to reward fans with a memorable performance.
Back home in Addis Ababa, Gebrselassie owns and runs a real estate developing business with his wife, Alem. Their four children, ages 9 to 2, know nothing of the hardscrabble beginning that launched their father’s career. He grew up on a farm, running the more than six miles to school each day.
“You need a hard time when you are training, especially long distance,” he said. “My kids, they live a luxury life. Between my house and school, it’s 3K and they use a car. My age, it was 10K and you walked to school.”
Across Ethiopia, a younger generation has taken up running because of Gebrselassie. Many runners he trains with, he said, are too shy to speak with him comfortably. But he loves to see them competing. It is a major reason he never moved from his country, despite his fame and the pressure that comes with it.
“When you ask them why they start running, and they say, ‘I start because of Haile Gebrselassie,’ for me it’s something special,” he said. “Now, you ask me what I feel. It’s the other way around. These athletes they start running because of me. Now I continue running because of them. When I see them run in the national championships and one of them breaks a record, I just feel so good. I am very proud.”
If he wishes anonymity, he needs only to come to Times Square on a summer afternoon.
Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia walked through Manhattan on a sweltering afternoon, a slight man in a simple khaki outfit, drawing attention only because two burly bodyguards cleared a path for him. Gebrselassie’s trademark smile, unwavering in yesterday’s heat and commotion, erupted in laughter when two passersby wondered aloud if perhaps he was the president of an African country.
If Gebrselassie had crossed town unescorted, the man universally regarded as the greatest distance runner would have turned few heads. His star will only shine come tomorrow when he re-enters the world he dominates, running in the NYC Half-Marathon. It will be the first time the 34-year-old Gebrselassie will run in New York.
The star-studded men’s field will also include the former New York Marathon champion Hendrik Ramaala and the three-time Boston Marathon champion Robert Cheruiyot.
“New York is New York,” Gebrselassie said later, laughing again, ensconced in an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem. “I come here and I wonder when it will become quiet here. It is never quiet.”
Luring Gebrselassie into the din from his home in Ethiopia was an eight-year quest by New York Road Runners. The group’s president, Mary Wittenberg, hopes he will someday join the field of its biggest event, the New York Marathon. This year, the Half-Marathon fit into Gebrselassie’s schedule as he prepares for the Berlin Marathon in September.
“There is Haile as an athlete and Haile as a man, and he is a superstar in both regards,” Wittenberg said. “He is the best ambassador for our sport. He can take over a race and he just fills up a room.”
Gebrselassie’s storied career includes 22 world-record performances, two Olympic gold medals in the 10,000 meters and 107 major-race victories. Recently, Gebrselassie has turned his talents to longer distances, winning three of six marathons since 2005 and winning every one of his seven half-marathons. His world record in that event was surpassed earlier this year by Samuel Wanjiru, a 20-year-old from Kenya.
But Gebrselassie has little intention of resting on his résumé or giving in to a younger generation. He surprised the track world in May with a last-minute entry into a 10,000-meter race in Hengelo, the Netherlands, where he finished fifth and became the first man over 30 to break 27 minutes. He ran it in 26:52. The first time he broke 27 minutes, he was 22.
“Everybody was surprised,” Gebrselassie said. “People say, ‘You are too old.’ But I’m not old. I feel still young.”
Gebrselassie believes he could still dominate his old track distances, except the intensity of that training led to a series of injuries.
He was forced to withdraw from the London Marathon in April after 18 miles when he had an allergic reaction to the pollen in the air. He said had never had an allergy attack before.
“It’s not an easy thing,” Gebrselassie said. “In the marathon you are running against the distance. It’s 42K. You never know where the problem you will have. In the 10 and the 5,000, it’s just competing against either the time or the athletes. But the marathon, you compete against the distance itself.”
Gebrselassie has encountered no such problems in half-marathons, building an undefeated streak, and he is now the target of a strong international field in New York. The 13.1-mile race starts in Central Park, races through Times Square and ends in Battery Park.
“He is the greatest distance runner who ever lived,” said Peter Gilmore, the top American entrant. “I’ve never raced against him. It’s going to be cool.”
Gebrselassie, long accustomed to the awe he has inspired, refuses to stop finding challenges. He said he picked his races for the chance to do something special, to reward fans with a memorable performance.
Back home in Addis Ababa, Gebrselassie owns and runs a real estate developing business with his wife, Alem. Their four children, ages 9 to 2, know nothing of the hardscrabble beginning that launched their father’s career. He grew up on a farm, running the more than six miles to school each day.
“You need a hard time when you are training, especially long distance,” he said. “My kids, they live a luxury life. Between my house and school, it’s 3K and they use a car. My age, it was 10K and you walked to school.”
Across Ethiopia, a younger generation has taken up running because of Gebrselassie. Many runners he trains with, he said, are too shy to speak with him comfortably. But he loves to see them competing. It is a major reason he never moved from his country, despite his fame and the pressure that comes with it.
“When you ask them why they start running, and they say, ‘I start because of Haile Gebrselassie,’ for me it’s something special,” he said. “Now, you ask me what I feel. It’s the other way around. These athletes they start running because of me. Now I continue running because of them. When I see them run in the national championships and one of them breaks a record, I just feel so good. I am very proud.”
If he wishes anonymity, he needs only to come to Times Square on a summer afternoon.
(This paper was written in early 2000, and was published in Ethiopian Review Magazine and other Ethiopian newsletters at that time. Although the text is almost a decade old, the issues analyzed are still current and fresh.)
It is difficult if not impossible for most of us to assess the effects, including the loss of human lives, the displacement of a large number of people, and the impact on economies, of the still unsettled Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict – a most unfortunate war that is said to be a result of border dispute. To make such an assessment and be able to present relatively balanced figures on the repercussions of the war, one would certainly require a proper and probably lengthy study, including access to government documents in both countries and the cooperation of officials. In general terms, however, it is clear (as many observers have indicated) that if it is allowed to continue the war will have a devastating effect on the people of the two countries. Additionally, based on the experience of the past two years, one might also argue strongly that this unexpected war has deeply affected both day-to-day interactions and general social relationships between the people of two countries – so badly that deep seated hostility has reached a point that may be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.
One cannot deny the existence of the tensions and resentments towards each other that have been present since the inception of the very idea of a separate state of Eritrea. During the 1980s – which marked the intensification of the armed struggle between EPLF/TPLF and the former dictatorial regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam – various hostile elements (including the distortion and misrepresentation of events and the history of Ethiopia, and quite disparaging statements directed at both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian historians), were used as tools to gain sympathy and assistance from the international community with the overall goal of achieving an independent state of Eritrea and helping the TPLF to take power in Addis Ababa. In the same period, both EPLF and TPLF worked successfully to gain not only sympathy but also the financial, material and moral support they needed from the West. Later, the early 1990s, with “new leaders” in Ethiopia and Eritrea – at the time, regarded as role models for African leadership – marked a dramatic revival of diplomatic and economic relations with the west.
What is obvious to many of us today is that the desired objectives of both movements (being in power) have been achieved, but without any thought for the future direction of the countries and people they wanted to lead. That is, without developing the sort of vision that is an indispensable part of leadership. Instead, those in power appear to have had a hidden, deep-seated animosity towards each other, which they did not want to disclose to their people. Instead, the two leaders made countless statements in their endless speeches and in addressing many regional and international gatherings, saying they were peacemakers. There would never, never be war between the countries under their leadership; they were not only peacemakers in their own countries but also forces for regional stability, in countries including the war-torn Somalia, the Sudan and even further, to Central and probably even Southern Africa. They said they had taken power because they wanted to free their people from endless conflicts and from the yoke of military dictatorship; to bring an accelerated economic prosperity; and to make people in the region happy and proud of their countries and themselves. Nevertheless, Ethiopians remain unconvinced. Instead, they resisted from the beginning, in an attempt to make their views clear to the international community. There was opposition to the arrangements and agreements between the two regimes in Asmara and Addis Ababa, as well as to the ethnic policies of the Ethiopian government. Since the change of power in Ethiopia that coincided with the independence of Eritrea, Ethiopians, especially the Amhara, have become outcastes, rarely given higher level governmental responsibilities and kept in the dark regarding arrangements between the two countries. In fact, little or no information was given to “outsiders”. Ethiopians who were worried about the new directions being taken in Ethiopia were constantly accused by the regimes in Addis Ababa and Asmara, and also by donor countries and major NGO communities, of either being associated with Mengistu’s regime or of regretting the loss of power by the Amhara, who had been in power throughout most of Ethiopia’s history.
After fighting as hand and glove with TPLF against Mengistu’s regime, Eritreans (living both in Ethiopia/Eritrea and abroad) had at least a brief period in which they could enjoy freedom of movement. Also they, rather than Ethiopians, held the highest governmental and non-governmental positions in Ethiopia. They also had the privilege of advising and helping the TPLF (then called the Ethiopian Transitional Government) to craft strategies and policies in an effort to keep Ethiopians out of Ethiopia’s national and international activities and affairs. As can be seen from speeches and papers presented by Eritreans at many conferences devoted exclusively to Ethiopia, as well to the media in Africa, Europe and the United States, Eritrean intellectuals and professionals indeed behaved as the uncontested official representatives of Ethiopia. Eritreans today probably regret the many roles they played on behalf of the government of Ethiopia during the early 1990s. It is becoming clear that their behavior was not based on a rational assessment and a responsible attitude towards the future wellbeing of the people of these two countries.
Apart from protesting about human rights issues, Ethiopian intellectuals and professionals, on the other hand, produced little or no effective efforts to organize an effective, operational and respected voice capable of embracing Ethiopians and their issues. It is unfortunate that no effort was made to create and use such a vital and indispensable force, capable of linking the energy, knowledge, skills and expertise of Ethiopians living at home and throughout the international community. It is probably not wrong to see the past 15 or 20 years as a missed opportunity. The past two decades have been experienced by Ethiopians as a period of humiliation, characterized by a drastic reduction in the status of Ethiopia and Ethiopians in the international community – with increasing dependence on the outside world and external charities. Unfortunately many Ethiopians have spent this painful period mainly haggling with each other over largely irrelevant matters such as the future leadership of social and political groupings or organizations.
One of the frustrating factors that contributed greatly to the inability of opposing Ethiopian groups to form and shape a united force capable of challenging the regimes in Addis Ababa and Asmara has been the open handed support provided by western countries to both Ethiopia and Eritrea, while little or no attention was given to Ethiopians with opposing views. Western governments were eager to assist the two leaderships, because they were convinced they could do business with them. Long-term political stability in Ethiopia and Eritrea was expected. The presence and the active involvement of the United States was more obvious than that of other countries and its financial assistance, especially to Ethiopia, was said to be quite substantial. US–Ethiopia relations, however, were not limited to diplomatic relations and economic assistance. The United States was actively and publicly engaged in strengthening and shaping a combined regional force involving Uganda and the two countries that were now in conflict with each other. This was aimed at weakening and replacing the Islamic government of Sudan with “moderate” individuals or groups willing to work cooperatively with the west and embrace its economic models. It is also believed that, despite internal tensions and human rights violations, the IMF and the World Bank were and probably still are more open to lending large amounts to the Ethiopian government than to other governments in the region. Yet despite the involvement of donor countries and the provision of substantial financial and military support, and the wide-spread presence of western institutions and NGOs (the latter were largely in Ethiopia), it would be wrong to assume that donor countries were interested in the general well-being of the people, the issues facing rural people and the urban poor of the two countries. In fact it was evident that foreign powers had little or no interest in helping to craft a reliable framework or final agreements regarding Eritrean independence that would have been conducive to a lasting peace. There was also little interest in the many other issues related to future relations and cooperation between the two countries. Since the change of power in May 1991, as far as one can recall, no single western country or department official has shown any concern for human rights violations in either country. No concern was shown when thousands of Ethiopians were forced into exile; when those few Ethiopian public figures who managed to escape Mengistu’s seventeen years of terror were forced to languish (some have already lost their lives) in prison because their views differ from those in power. To convince the world, government officials call their victims criminals. They say these people have been jailed because of criminal activities. Government officials display weapons (secretly placed by government representatives in the backyard or house of a political opponent of the regime) to journalists and the media. Meanwhile Ethiopians have continuously attempted to make the international community aware of Ethiopians who have been killed or jailed and kidnapped or are victims of political repression by the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara. Multiple sorts of evidence, including lists of names of victims of human rights violations, have periodically been presented to various western ministerial departments and concerned major western institutions and NGOs by national and international human rights organizations. The leaders of donor countries, however, remain reluctant to become involved; they have kept a deaf ear to the daily cries of Ethiopians.
Despite the persistent outcry of Ethiopians regarding massive human rights violations, the present leaders seem to have had the power to convince both diplomats and the rest of the international community, saying it was their predecessors who committed inhuman acts; but they themselves claim to be the backbone of human rights organizations. And despite what must have been longstanding and growing animosity, both leaders were also capable of creating the impression for the outside world that their mutual friendship and cooperation would last for generations. Just three weeks before the official outbreak of war, when foreign journalists asked if he were aware of tensions and anxieties between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, indicated that he saw such rumors and gossip as the talk and dreams of enemies, of those who have nothing better to do than spread rumors. He said they were jealous of Ethiopia–Eritrea, and their strong and immovable friendship built on the basis of brotherhood and respect for each other. But this wasn’t true. The two leaders were engaged in making fools of us. The deep-seated animosity that had existed for many years became too much to cover up. It exploded in May 1998, spreading throughout the two countries in a highly accelerated fashion. Many friendly donor counties reacted to this news with surprise and disbelief. For the United States, the outbreak of the war was more than disappointing – it was a slap in the face. But for the INF government in Khartoum, the news was received with relief; it expressed its joy by simply saying “you see, Allah is always with us.”
Inside sources stated that, because the hate and hostile attitudes towards each other were so strong and had built up over many years, the war between the two leaders will not come to a peaceful end. They added that a peaceful resolution of the conflict would definitely affect the existing power structure and in fact the very chance of survival of each leadership. Thus, the two leaders must insist on maintaining the current course, at least their war of words.
Looking at the overall outcome and the painful conditions and experiences that the people of the now two countries have lived through in the last three decades, one tends to conclude that we are all the losers, with little or no prospect of future recovery. The goals that were said to be expected to come from war did not materialize. The obvious results of these years are instead the continuation of the war itself, the loss of more and more human lives, and the production and dissemination of elements that help the leaders to increase the animosity among the people, to help perpetuate their own power. And people listen to the leaders; they are used as instruments.
What has been more surprising, depressing and even shocking in recent times, however, is the instrumentality of intellectuals in the production and distribution of material that has helped to worsen the already existing animosities among the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The irrational approach of Ethiopian and Eritrean intellectuals and professionals to the complex and longstanding issues that face us, as well as the people at large, strongly indicates our willingness and readiness to be used as followers and tools of those in power who are interested in keeping people in conflict. We also seem to be incapable and/or unwilling to engage with each other and to look for ways to discuss our problems rationally and constructively. The continuation of the war at home and the increasing animosity towards each other have greatly contributed to the breakup of many marriages (even among those living abroad); many people who used to be good friends do not see each other anymore. But is this the best way to influence people? Is this what we want? In the search for possible strategies to peace and future relations between the people of the two countries, the education we received both at home and abroad (some of us with advanced degrees) seems in some cases more a detriment both to us and the people at large than a force that delivers the anticipated positive contribution.
It appears that our emotion has become exceedingly dominant over our rationality. The techniques we use in attempting to explain our views are often harsh, destructive to both current and future relations between people. Our views and attitudes towards each other are so full of hate and cruelty that we may not be able to reverse or repair the damage in the near future. Ninety percent of writings presented in various newspapers, magazines and web sites for reading or, rather intended for a deeper understanding of their grievance with a particular intention of getting sympathy from the international community contain only emotions and animosities. Texts seem to be written only with the objective of winning the battle and controlling the disputed area; defeat and kill the targeted enemy and then organize a huge party to congratulate those who achieved that. Such emotional articles, full of distortions about day to day events in our home countries and attempting to humiliate leaders and other government officials, are being produced and distributed (in my view) without the slightest thought of any responsibility for short and long-term consequences.
Of course people are being killed and others are suffering as a result of the endless conflict, but again, the loss of so many lives, the painful experiences and events are a clear result of our own creations, deeds and hostile attitudes towards each other. In other words, everything we have to deal with at present is the result of our own desire to achieve certain goals, spurred on by the force of emotion, whatever the cost. The question is again: Have our actions put us where we want to be?
As an illustration, Professor Jordan Gebre-Medhin’s characterizes (Ethiopian Review, Feb. 1993: 27) those who disagree with measures undertaken against the Ethiopian people and with the political and territorial arrangements reached between the two regimes as “Ankober chauvinist,” constituting a repressive campaign to make their dream of greater Ethiopia a reality. Professor Jordan’s article contains many disparaging statements, which does not encourage non-Eritrean readers. Professor Jordan concludes his article by instructing us to read his book for more information.
In the more recent Eritrean Studies Review (volume 3, number 2, 1999, published by Red Sea Press, Inc., and devoted to the Ethiopia–Eritrea war, with articles exclusively written by Eritreans), Professor Jordan again appears to make all possible efforts to add fuel to the existing tensions between the government in Addis Ababa and the Oromo people. In his attempt to convince us, Professor Jordan sees the source of the current Ethiopia–Eritrea conflict as the TPLF’s ambition for the “revival of Tigrayan hegemony” as seen under Emperor Yohannes IV. Jordan states that “Emperor Yohannes and the TPLF made extensive use of the Oromo peasants as the bulk of their army in their invasion of Merb Melash (Eritrea). The centralized states of Emperor Yohannes were built by slave trade from the populous Oromo region. The slaves were shipped to Europe and North America through the Red Sea.” To be able to control Eritrea. He sees exactly the same activity and the same objective as the overall aim of TPLF today: to gain and control access to the Red Sea. Jordan concludes by saying that “already under this Eritrean leadership two regimes in Ethiopia have fallen. If history teaches a lesson it is that the TPLF is marching headlong toward the same abyss into which its predecessors have fallen”. Regrettably, in his review of Jordan’s article in the same volume, Professor Tekie Fessehatzion, Editor of ESR, cites this article as “ insightful.”
It is not at all clear to me which period of Eritrean leadership and previous leadership in Addis Ababa Jordan refers to. Jordan of course mentions names of authors, including well-known names who write on Ethiopian history. But specific books, years and pages are not provided. Such vague, unverifiable analysis can hardly be expected from individuals such as Jordan. In fact it comes across as a bit of creative writing, with bizarre references intended to blackmail both the past and present leadership of Ethiopia. Such distortion and hostility suggests a total immaturity. One thing is clear: this sort of thing will never bring people closer. We will all remain the losers, without being able to help either ourselves or the people.
Another illustration of the growing animosity between the people of the two countries is the following. Since the war erupted, the official representatives of the two countries have been engaged in highlighting and explaining the causes that led to war to the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities residing in the West, to the best of their ability. Such gatherings are typically organized with the intention of arousing emotions, as well as getting moral support and financial contributions from the communities. The officials of each country do their best to convince community members to be on their side, and to share their attitude that their government has been forced to armed confrontation by an aggressor and invader, to defend the country and the well-being of the people.
I myself have attended some of these meetings, both in Europe and in the United States. Two or three weeks before one of the events in which I was a participant, a videocassette showing the bombardment of Mekele was distributed to the Ethiopian community. It graphically pictures the ravaging effects of the war, such as bodies of children who have been killed and wounded. During the meeting the Ambassador and other officials, who had come a long distance to inform us, asked the conference audience if we had already seen the film of the bombardment. A good number of people said “yes”, with a tone of sadness. But one young lady, who said she was from Mekele, said loudly, “yes, I saw it ten or more times.” She went on to tell her story very emotionally to the attentively listening government officials and conference audience: “I was married to an Eritrean man and have three children. Immediately after I saw the videocassette, however, it became clear to me how cruel those people can be. I realized my three children will never, never be a part of me. Because they have an Eritrean father. Two weeks ago, I left my children with their father. I am now living alone. And I will never, see them again”. Because her emotion was so high there was silence for some time among conference participants, and probably many sad emotions as well.
There are many more such instances; we have been witnessing them since the outbreak of the Ethiopia–Eritrea war. Meanwhile it seems to me we have been imposing a restriction on ourselves, so that we do not ask questions, such as whether our current enterprise of spreading hate and animosity against each other is the best way to fulfill our goals and dreams. In my view, they are not. As the past four decades have shown, not even a small section of the population of the two countries has experienced a positive effect as a result of the struggle or the animosity. Instead, almost all of us have clearly been the losers. Not only have we lost family members, also we have witnessed the repeated humiliation of our country and people as a result of frequently returning famine and hunger; and growing poverty, partly as consequence of the diversion of money and human resources into the military. Finally, we have seen the weakening and loss of our many common social and cultural elements. In summary, recovery would be easier if we could work together, but it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to restore the many sided cultural forces that have tied us together over centuries, unless we are willing to begin approaching our issues and problems rationally and to take measures to correct the mistakes we have made.
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The author can reached at [email protected]
Ironically, it was while agitating for freedom and democracy in his home country of Ethiopia that Abebe Fekadu lost his own.