In famine-stricken Ethiopia, a Saudi company leases land to grow and export rice
By Public Radio International
Famine has swept through much of Ethiopia in the past year, but a new project will see a Saudi Arabian country convert one of the most fertile areas to produce rice for export. The idea is it’s better to have people employed and making money.
Gambella in western Ethiopia is one of the most fertile places in the mostly drought- and famine-stricken Eastern Africa country, with thick forests, scorching heat and abundant rains.
But now Gambella, home to five rivers and a National Park, is also home to large-scale agricultural investments. A Saudi billionaire has leased 25,000 acres from the Ethiopian government to grow rice and this summer planted its first commercial crop. The company, Saudi Star, plans to expand that to nearly 500,000 acres within 10 years.
Saudi Star plans to add hundreds of miles of irrigation canals and pipes to bring water from the Alwero Dam to its thirsty rice crop. Ethiopians don’t typically grow or eat rice, so most of the crop will be exported to the Middle East. But Muhammad Manzoor Khan, a Pakistani consultant for Saudi Star, said the rice will still help Ethiopia feed its people.
“This kind of project can really bring a revolution in food production as well as uplifting the social conditions of the people around,” Khan said, standing in front of rice paddies.
Ethiopia is a fast-developing nation, but it’s struggling with severe drought and skyrocketing food prices. The Ethiopian government estimates 4.5 million people in the country need emergency food aid.
In the past few years, Ethiopia has developed a comprehensive agricultural plan that relies on foreign investment, and much-needed foreign currency to move forward.
Saudi Star predicts its massive rice project will generate $1 billion in revenue for Ethiopia and create tens of thousands of jobs. The Ministry of Agriculture’s Esayas Kebede said that means increased food security for Ethiopians – if people have jobs they can buy food, even if there is a drought.
“If you increase the purchasing power of the people, the people can easily get their own food by their own cash,” Kebede said.
But many of the local Anuak tribe say the rice farm is not providing jobs for their people. They worry the rice will dry up the water they rely on for their own farming and fishing. And they say, after years of hostility from the government, they are now being forced off their land to make way for investors.
One local woman from the Anuak tribe said the government told them they’re moving them to a better place where they can get government assistance.
“There are no farms here and no food. Now we’re living like refugees in our own country,” she said.
The Ethiopian government admits it moved people from rural settlements to villages, but not because of the Saudi Star project, they say. Kebede said it was to provide them with better services and aid. According to Human Rights Watch, however, many of Anuak are being relocated to parts of Gambella that already have insufficient food for the local population.
“This large scale investment program has nothing to do with food security concerns in the country,” said Desalegn Rahmeto, a senior research fellow at the Forum for Social Studies in Addis Ababa. “If you export all the food items and earn foreign currency, but people in the communities don’t have access to food, that is counter productive. And this is happening, this is not hypothetical situation, this is actually happening.”
———————————————————-
“PRI’s “The World” is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. “The World” is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. More about
The last few months I have been inflicted with a Herman Cain (HC) moment. You remember his interview with a newspaper publisher and when asked his opinion regarding President Obama’s policy on the uprising in Libya? My good old friend was completely stumped. After crossing his legs, shifting in his seat, clapping his hands and squirming in his chair all he could come up was ‘I got all this stuff twirling in my head.’ and display a near meltdown situation. I found it to be very interesting. Let us just say it was ‘a revealing moment.’
It just so happened that things have been twirling in my head. It is not a good idea to have so many things twirling in your head. Lack of clarity is not a good state of mind to be unless one of course wants a certain amount of fogginess or blurred vision. It is possible we do that to avoid making hard decisions, shift responsibility or distance ourselves from our actions or choose to be comfortably numb to justify inaction.
It was the convergence of three unrelated happenings that yanked me out from that dark, wet, suffocating ‘Idiot Woyane’ state of mind. My friend Kirubeal’s constant nagging, Abebe’s timely revelations (I am still not over ‘Mamo kilo in Arat Kilo’), Professors Al’s relentless tickle of my discarded conscience, my dear hero’s ECADF’s energetic enthusiasm and Ethiopian Review’s smart ‘Policy Research’ papers was what kept me from going into deep freeze. Some folks don’t take no for an answer.
The four items that made me realize that all is not lost are the first Anniversary of ‘Arab Spring’, the death of Vaclav Havel of ‘Prague Spring’ and the passage of Kim Jung-il owner of ‘perpetual winter’ and a not so likeable human being and the sacrifice of Yenesew Gebre of Ethiopia.
A single spark starts a prairie fire was just another saying. Our hero Mohamed Bouazizi of Tunisia lit a single match to say ‘enough’, Beka! and set the world on fire. Gaddafi is poster boy for the ‘inferno’ Mohamed started. It engulfed the planet and still shows no sign of slowing down. The 99% are asking a fair share of the pie. Tunis, Cairo, Tripoli, Sanna, Bahrin, Damascus, New York, Moscow, Wukan (China) have become battlefields. What happens the next year is bound to realign the balance of forces in society. There is no doubt the playing field will be leveled a little better in favor of the many. How each system works out the conflict depends on how it was designed to self- correct.
You drive south from Tunis, capital of Tunisia on Hwy 37 follow P3 South, take P13 and you are in Sid Bouzid. A little dusty town in the middle of nowhere. Nothing of consequence has ever happened in Sid Bouzid. Exactly a year ago Mohamed Bouazizi was selling produce when he was slapped by a Policewoman in front of everyone for not having a license for his vegetable cart. What he did next, for some reason, touched humanity. What he did was he went in front of Sid Bouzid City Hall, doused his cloth with petrol and set himself on fire. He said Tunisia is not fit to live for a person of dignity. It is a very unique, dramatic and loud response to injustice. He made his point and it echoed.
The question became how does a government deal with its population’s legitimate demands? Gaddafi’s way is definitely proven unacceptable, Mubarak’s blindness have him in the slammer, Ben Ali is in virtual prison, Assad is squirming, Saleh is finished, damaged and grasping, Putin is at a loss… the carrot or the stick is the dilemma and as a confirmed Marxist he can’t even pray to God for guidance. The Chinese Central Committee is mulling over on how to respond regarding Wukan, Gunadong Province, and Obama is watching, observing, waiting to see if ‘occupy’ is a real or virtual force. May all the Gods welcome Mohamed Bouazizi’s soul with drums and trumpets fit for a hero. I am sure those in authority have slapped many before him but the fact is Mr. Bouazizi said enough in a unique way in the age of Social Media and did it ever spread like a prairie fire!
The death of Vaclav Havel was another defining moment. He was the product of Prague Spring of 1968. Prague Spring was the forefather to Arab Spring. Things were different in 1968, the time of ‘Prague Spring’. Europe was divided between the Socialist East under Soviet influence and the Capitalist West under the US umbrella. Czechoslovakia was one of those unfortunates stringing along without due consent. The Soviet Union used Czechoslovakia as buffer. In 1968 Alexander Dubcek was elected as First Secretary of the Communist Party and set in motion reform polices granting the citizen certain Rights. The Soviet Union did not take such transgression lightly and used its Warsaw Pact forces to invade Czechoslovakia and end freedom.
The little open space granted by Dubcek inspired people like Vaclav Havel. His work was banned due to his opposition to the invasion. He was declared UN desirable person in his own homeland. He never wavered. His plays and poetry were published elsewhere and smuggled in. They were read on short wave radios. He was imprisoned. He persisted. In 1979 Havel and his comrades published Charter 77 Manifesto, a plea to the Communist Party and Government to abide by various International conventions including its own Constitution and open the space for political dialogue.
The Soviet puppet regime reacted angrily. The Charter was deemed ‘anti–state, anti-socialist and those who signed the document were branded ‘traitors and agents of imperialists’. The official press described the Manifesto as “an anti-state, anti-socialist, and demagogic abusive piece of writing,” and individual signatories were variously described as “traitors and renegades,” “a loyal servant and agent of imperialism,” “bankrupt politicians”. The regime also organized their own ‘anti-charter’ movement and used famous musicians and artists to denounce ‘the traitors.’
The problem percolated for twenty years and gave birth to what came to b e known as ‘The Velvet Revolution.’ On 19th of November, 1989 the fire was lit by student demonstrators in Prague and on November 28, 1989 the Communist Party withered away. In June 1990 the Czechoslovakian people have their first democratic election since 1946. Vaclav Havel was elected the first President and ushered in an era of peace and democracy to his beloved country. He did not use his newfound power to hound his enemies, settle score with his abusers or use his position to enrich family and friends. Vaclav Havel the playwright, the poet, the dissident and the first democratically elected President of Czechoslovakia died last week. He died in body but left such a beautiful legacy behind his people will talk about him for a long time to come. He was a beautiful human being.
My third wake up call was rung by no other than Comrade Kim Jung-il of North Korea. His life was shrouded in secrecy and he died mysteriously. In fact no one knows how and when he died. What he left behind is a life full of garbage that cannot be recycled because of its toxicity and a history that will be buried deep and denied by his people. North Korea has been ruled by the Kim family since its founding. The Kim family in consort with the Military and a few Hodams control the economy thus the nation. What Stalin envisioned, Mao attempted has been realized by the Kim family.
North Korea is where we see how fragile we humans are. The Kim family has been able to reduce twenty four million Koreans into walking zombies. Using denial of all outside input like Television and Radio using censoring and blocking, starvation, physical degradation like imprisonment, torture, televised confessions and bullying, the Kim family has proven to the world that they are worthy successors to Stalin. The little dictator fancied himself as an intellectual and his newspapers and propaganda outlets referred to ham as ‘The Dear Leader, The Fearless Leader, The General’ and other outrageous titles to bully his population. He left behind a legacy of fear, poverty and a people that were never allowed to enjoy the fruits of their existence. We Ethiopians familiar with that.
We say ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ regarding Kim while we fondly remember Mohamed Bouazizi and Vaclav Havel. Their stories fill us with hope and love they have bestowed on us. Are they special or just like us? But they made their presence felt. They rose a little higher. Where did they find that inner strength to keep going when all seemed hopeless? Vaclav Havel had that quality. He was imprisoned. His work was banned. He was hounded by the security force. But he kept focus on his dignity and freedom. By fighting for his rights he stood for all of us. He named one of his essays ‘power of the powerless.’ Mohamed Bouazizi did not have an army. Not even an association. He was just trying to eek out living selling vegetables. A common man like the rest of us. He challenged us by his act. He was willing to end it all so we see what has been done to us. The people of Tunisia heard him. The world eavesdropped.
You probably don’t know what happened on Friday, November 11, 2009. A young Ethiopian named Yenesew Gebre, set himself on fire in Dawro, Waka Southern region of Ethiopia. It did not revebrate like Mohamed Bouazizi’s. It was not heard around the world. We Ethiopians the message was sent to heard it clear. In my opinion, Yenesew spoke to us very loud. It requires much courage and untold amount of rage to compel a young man to sacrifice himself. Death on behalf of others is the ultimate sacrifice.
If it mattered at all Yenesew was a very educated person. But that is not the issue here. He was a human being working hard to reach his potential and help himself and his family. He has done his part. By becoming a teacher he has acquired a skill that is in very short supply in Ethiopia. A job and a decent living is what come with such achievement. But Yenesew has that other quality that is also in short supply in repressive societies. Yenesew has conscience. Moral compass. Call it what you want, simply put, he cared about you and I. That made him very unhappy. That also made the authorities very unhappy. Yenesew can see and that is a crime in the village of the blind.
Like Vaclav Havel Yenesew dissented. He was fired from his job, his family hounded and his associates bullied. That is the way of ‘Revolutionary Democracy’ in Ethiopia. Like Vaclav Havel Yenesew was jailed, shunned and black listed. The more they bullied him the better he saw them. When they spoke he saw the lie they live, when they shouted he saw the fear that is wrecking their soul, when they stole and consumed to excess he saw the full but always hungry belly they carried, when they bullied he saw the insecurity lurking behind them. What he saw was not what he wanted for his homeland and his people.
Mohamed Bouazizi and Yenesew Gebre have become the conscience of humanity. The two felt the indignity they suffered in their country and home at the hands of those in authority made then realize life is meaningless without free will. If it is not worth living then why live. Thus they decided to make their death count. To their people they said ‘the pain is too much to bear’ for the rest of us they said ‘dignified death at your choosing is better than physical and mental slavery.’ They said the two countries Tunisia and Ethiopia were not conducive to human dignity. One of the seeds has sprouted and the other will too. No reason to think otherwise. The Prague Spring gave rise to the Velvet Revolution that begat The Orange Revolution that begat the Rose Revolution that led to Arab Spring – there is no end to human thirst for freedom and equality.
Yenesew saw beyond himself. He felt the pain and sorrow of his neighbor. What he was about to do goes against his religion, his value system and his culture but the importance and timeliness of the message must have outweighed all other considerations. It was not an easy decision. He was at a physical location where he was beaten down but mentally he knew there is more to life and as a teacher he should do his duty and teach. He went every legal way open to no avail. It was never about the law. Thus My dear little brother decided to use the planet as his wall board and write his message to humanity in general and his people in particular. This Human said Beka! Enough! Rest in peace my friend. Your people heard you.
Twenty-five-thousand-truck loads of coffee disappeared from the government warehouse this year and Meles Zenawi’s explanation was: “let’s forget about it, but don’t do it again.” Of course he knows, and we all know, who stole the coffee. It’s none other than his own wife, making the act the most {www:brazen} theft of public property this year. Watch Meles Zenawi’s explanation below:
Nonviolent movements are faced every day with stresses in the areas of leadership, fear-management, and avoiding {www:contamination}, so they need to be prepared. They also need to be tactically innovative and choose issues and actions that put the tyrant in dilemmas. … [read more]
(CNN) — Two Swedish journalists who were found guilty in Ethiopia of supporting terrorism were sentenced to 11 years in jail Tuesday, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said.
“Our belief was that the court would think they were journalists and they would be released. This is what the prime minister has said before,” ministry spokesman Anders Jörle said. “It is not fair that they are sentenced since they are journalists on a journalistic mission.”
“They are innocent and have been convicted because of their journalistic work,” said Tomas Olsson, the journalists’ Swedish attorney. “We are very disappointed.”
A court convicted Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye last week.
Ethiopian Woaynne troops captured Persson and Schibbye in July during an exchange of gunfire with a rebel group in the Ogaden, a prohibited region along the nation’s border with Somalia, according to state media.
Ethiopian Woyanne officials accused the journalists of being accomplices to terrorism after the government declared the Ogaden National Liberation Front a terrorist group in June.
Olsson said the 11-year sentence was the lowest possible one for the crimes they were convicted of.
“The prosecutor sought 18 years imprisonment, so if you look at it that way, it is a positive thing that they got the lowest possible sentence,” Olsson said. “But since they are innocent, they are very disappointed.”
Schibbye and Persson have until January 10 to decide if they want to appeal — a process that could take up to two years — or if they want to seek a pardon.
However, Olsson said, if they want to apply for a pardon the two have to admit the crimes, “and since they are not guilty then this is not something they’d want to do.”
Fredric Alm at the Sweden-based photojournalism agency Kontinent, for which the two men work, said they “have a very hard decision ahead of them” in considering whether to appeal or ask for a pardon, but that an 11-year sentence in an Ethiopian prison “could effectively be a death sentence for them.”
Alm added: “The purpose of this verdict is to scare away all journalists from reporting in the Ogaden. But as journalists we have to continue reporting from closed areas. It’s a very sad day for press freedom. It’s a very sad day but it didn’t come as a surprise for us. It’s still a political verdict; it’s not a real trial. It is the (Ethiopian) prime minister who has decided.”
Persson and Schibbye were convicted on two counts: entering the country illegally and providing assistance to a terrorist organization, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Press freedom groups say the two were embedded with the rebels while working on a story about the region.
Journalists and aid workers are prohibited from entering the Ogaden, where human rights organizations say human rights abuses against ethnic Somalis by rebels and Ethiopian troops are rampant.
“The Ethiopian Woyanne army’s answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in the Ogaden,” said Georgette Ganon of Human Rights Watch. “These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against humanity.”
Reporters Without Borders criticized the court’s decision.
“What are the Ethiopian authorities hoping to achieve?” the international secretariat of the group asked. “To discourage anyone from visiting the Ogaden, as these two journalists did? To send a warning signal to the national and international media about the danger of receiving a long jail sentence on a terrorism charge if they attempt any potentially embarrassing investigative reporting?”
“Our starting point is and remains that they have been in the country on a journalistic mission,” Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said in a statement last week. “They should be freed as soon as possible and be able to rejoin their families in Sweden.”
But presiding judge Shemsu Sirgaga said the two “have not been able to prove that they did not support terrorism.”
“They have shown that they are esteemed journalists, but we cannot conclude that someone with a good reputation does not engage in criminal acts,” Sirgaga said.
Both journalists pleaded guilty to entering the country illegally through Somalia without accreditation, according to the CPJ, which says Ethiopian officials deny media access without government minders.
“We have documented violations of due process and the politicization of their trial,” the CPJ said, complaining that the government pronounced the two guilty even before the trial started.
Amnesty International called for their release ahead of Tuesday’s sentencing.
“There is nothing to suggest that the two men entered Ethiopia with any intention other than conducting their legitimate work as journalists. The government chooses to interpret meeting with a terrorist organization as support of that group and therefore a terrorist act,” said Claire Beston with the human rights group.
In a statement issued in September, Kontinent said that its journalists do not take sides or participate in any conflict and report under international rights regarding freedom of the press, which it believes should be upheld by any government.
The trial against the journalists turned into a fight for press freedom in Ethiopia, according to international journalists’ organizations. In a letter sent to the United Nations, Reporters without Borders accused Ethiopia of using its anti-terrorism law to lessen press freedom and penalize free speech.
“In the name of the fight against terrorism, the government muzzles dissident and critical voices, thus abusing human rights and fundamental freedoms,” wrote the secretary general of Reporters without Borders, Jean-Francois Julliard
In December 2008, I wrote a weekly column entitled “Groundhog Year in Prison Nation” summarizing some of my weekly columns for that year. I used the “groundhog” metaphor from a popular motion picture in which a hapless television weatherman is trapped in a time warp and finds himself reliving the same day over and over. I wrote:
“2008 in Ethiopia was Groundhog Year! It was a repetition of 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004… Everyday millions of Ethiopians woke up only to find themselves trapped in a time loop where their lives replayed like a broken record. Each “new” day is the same as the one before it: Repression, intimidation, corruption, incarceration, deception, brutalization and human rights violation. Everything that happened to them the previous day, the previous week, the previous month and the previous 18 years happens to them today. They are resigned to the fact that they are doomed to spend the rest of their lives asphyxiated in a Prison Nation. They have no idea how to get out of this awful cycle of misery, agony, despair and tribulation. So, they pray and pray and pray and pray… for deliverance from Evil!
It is December 2010, the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. Are Ethiopians better off today than they were in 2009, 2005…2000?
Does bread (teff) cost more today than it did a year ago…, five years ago? Cooking oil, household fuel, beef, poultry, gasoline, housing, water, electricity, public transport…?
Are there more poor people today in Ethiopia than there were a year ago… five years ago? More unemployment among youth, less educational opportunities, less health care?
Is there more corruption, more secrecy, less transparency and less accountability in December 2010 than in December 2009…?
Are elections more free and fair in 2010 than they were in 2008, 2005?
Is there more press freedom today than five years ago? More human rights violations?
Is Ethiopia more dependent on international charity for its daily bread today than a year ago…?
Is there more environmental pollution, habitat destruction, forced human displacement and land grabs in Ethiopia today than there was in 2005?
Are businesses paying more taxes and bribes in Ethiopia today than in years past?
Is Ethiopia today at the very bottom of the global Index of Economic Freedom (limited access to financing, inefficient government bureaucracy, inadequate supply of infrastructure)?
Here is a recap of some of my weekly commentaries for groundhog year 2011 in the Republic of Corruptistan:
“The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage”, wrote Economist Sarah Freitas of Global Financial Integrity (GFI). US$11.7 billion was stolen out of Ethiopia between 2000 and 2009, according to GFI.
Ethiopians are poor because they have been robbed, ripped off, flimflammed, bamboozled, conned, fleeced, scammed, hosed, swindled, suckered, hoodwinked, victimized, shafted and taken to the cleaners by those clinging to power like bloodsucking ticks on an African milk cow. The fact of the matter is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Zenawi has absolute power in Ethiopia. Pleading for transparency and issuing moral exhortations against corruption will have no effect on the behavior of Zenawi or any of the other African dictators. Indeed, to plead the virtues of accountability, transparency and good governance with Zenawi and Co., is like preaching Scripture to a gathering of heathens. It means nothing to them.
On 11/11/11, Teacher Yenesew Gebre, a 29 year-old Ethiopian school teacher and human rights activist set himself ablaze in Southern Ethiopia. He died three days later from his injuries. Yenesew was protesting the politically-motivated illegal detention of some young people at an official town meeting. He demanded their immediate release. Officials offered him hush money to “go and enjoy” himself, but he refused: “I am not going to sell my conscience. I do not want money. I want my people released.” Yenesew could not take it anymore. Before setting himself on fire, he spoke his peace: “In a country where there is no justice and no fair administration, where human rights are not respected, I will sacrifice myself so that these young people will be set free. I want to show to all that death is preferable than a life without justice and liberty and I call upon my fellow compatriots to fear nothing and rise up…”
But they were not satisfied looking at Yenesew’s ashes; they had to kill him a second time. They scandalized his name claiming he killed himself because he was insane. Yenesew was not insane; he was mad. Mad as hell at dictatorship, human rights violation and abuse of power; and he was madder than hell at state terrorism. Yenesew Gebre had only one choice: “Give me liberty or Give me Death!”
Awramba Times, the last popular independent weekly in Ethiopia, stopped publication after its outstanding managing editor and recipient of the 2010 Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award, Dawit Kebede, was forced to flee the country. Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” [Ke shee toregna, aand gazetegna.] For dictator Meles Zenawi, Awramba Times, the tip of the spear of press freedom in Ethiopia, is more to be feared than ten thousand bayonets. Thank you Awramba Times! Thank you Dawit Kebede, Woubshet Taye (recently jailed by Zenawi), Gizaw Legesse, Nebyou Mesfin, Abel Alemayehu, Wosenseged G Kidan, Mekdes Fisseha, Abe Tokichaw and Mehret Tadesse, Nafkot Yoseph, Moges Tikuye, Tigist Wondimu, Elias Gebru, Teshale Seifu, Fitsum Mammo and [not pictured] Ananya Sori, Surafel Girma and Tadios Getahun.
The truth is Ethiopia’s young people are Ethiopia’s future. Nearly 70 percent of the Ethiopian population of 80 million is estimated to be young people (50 percent of them under age 15). An old Ethiopian proverb reminds us: “Our youth are today’s seeds and tomorrow’s flowers. (Ye zare frewoch, ye’nege abebawoch).” For me, the most important question today revolves around these future flowers in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora. Young people want freedom, peace and equal opportunity. They are deeply offended by unfairness and injustice and despise those who abuse their powers. When I look across the proverbial “generation gap,” I see a gap in thinking, attitude and perspective, not age. I became a hopeless idealist [by following in the footsteps of young people]. When you become an idealist, you stand up for your convictions. You preach and teach what you believe in. So I do my best to promote democracy, human rights and freedom in Ethiopia and Africa and elsewhere. I try to be the voice of the voiceless, though some may think I am just a voice in the wilderness.
In what Zenawi describes as “one of fastest growing non-oil economies in Africa,” inflation is soaring; and by mid-2011, Zenawi’s Central Statistical Agency reported that the annual inflation rate had increased by 38 percent and food prices had surged by 45.3 percent. There are more than 12 million people who are chronically or periodically food insecure. Yet, Zenawi is handing out “large chunks” of the most fertile land in the country for free, to be sure for pennies, to foreign agribusiness multinational corporations to farm commercially and export the harvest. This past July, the U.S. Census Bureau had a frightening population forecast: By 2050, Ethiopia’s current population of 90 million will more than triple to 278 million, placing that country in the top 10 most populous countries in the world. It just does not make any sense.
Poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency (a/k/a corruption), lack of citizen participation and the absence of the rule of law are the root causes of extreme and widespread poverty, underdevelopment, aid-dependency, conflict, instability, starvation and injustice in Ethiopia. Have free and fair elections, allow the independent press to flourish, institutionalize the rule of law and maintain an independent judiciary, professionalize and depoliticize the civil service, the military and police forces and Ethiopians will be well on their way to permanently defeating poverty and making starvation a footnote in the history of the Ethiopian nation.
On December 21, 1987, Time Magazine on its cover page asked two timeless questions: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?” Famine is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia; it is a powerful political and military weapon. Ethiopia has been trapped in an endless cycle of dictatorship for decades. Its dictators do not give a damn if the people die one by one or by the millions. Famine is a structural part of the Ethiopian economy because the “government” owns all the land. Famine persists in Ethiopia because massive human rights abuses persist and because Zenawi has succeeded in keeping the famine hidden from public view in a “conspiracy of silence” with Western aid agencies and timid NGOs.
Zenawi’s economic planning is based on juggled figures, massaged statistics and irrational exuberance about overrated and illusory economic development. Systematic falsification of economic data, fraudulent statistics and creative accounting in economic reports have largely gone unchallenged for years by the learned Ethiopian Diaspora economists. The lack of systematic and sustained critique is all the more surprising and baffling given the fact that the economic swagger and wind-bagging about stratospheric economic growth and development comes from a regime not known for its economic “literacy”. Zenawi seems to follow the old principle that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” (Who believes in make-believe?)
Lately, Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia, has been rounding up dissidents, journalists, opposition party political leaders and members under a diktat known as “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009”. State terrorism is the systematic use and threat of use of violence and coercion, intimidation, imprisonment and persecution to create a prevailing climate of fear in a population with a specific political message and outcome: “Resistance is futile! Resistance will be crushed! There will be no resistance!” State terrorism paralyzes the whole society and incapacitates individuals by entrenching fear as a paramount feature of social inaction and immobilization through the exercise of arbitrary power and extreme brutality. In Ethiopia today, it is not just that the climate of fear and loathing permeates every aspect of social and economic life, indeed the climate of fear has transformed the “Land of Thirteen Months of Sunshine” in to the “Land of Thirteen Months of Fear, Loathing, Despair and Darkness”.
Things keep falling apart in Africa because over the past one-half century of independence it has been nearly impossible to hold Africa’s so-called leaders accountable. For fifty years, African “leaders” have been telling Africans and the world that Africa’s problems are all externally caused. Africa is what it is (or is not) because of its colonial legacy. It is the white man. It is imperialism. It is capitalism. It is the International Monetary Fund. It is the World Bank. The continent’s underdevelopment, poverty, backwardness, mismanagement are all caused by evil powers outside the continent. The latest re-invention of the old African Boogeyman is “globalization” and “neoliberalism”, which Zenawi claims has “created three consecutive lost decades for Africa”. Things keep falling apart in Africa because of the lack of competent leadership with vision, purpose and integrity. Indeed the common thread that sews the vast majority of post-independence African leaders is not steadfast commitment to good governance and democratic practices, but their incredible sense of entitlement to rule forever and ever and ever.
If democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people, a thugocracy is a government of thieves, for thieves, by thieves. Simply stated, a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugs) in designer suits. It is becoming crystal clear that much of Africa today is a thugocracy privately managed and operated for the exclusive benefit of bloodthirsty thugtators. In a thugtatorship, the purpose of seizing and clinging to political power is solely to accumulate personal wealth for the ruling class by stealing public funds and depriving the broader population scarce resources necessary for basic survival. Africa’s thugtatorships have longstanding and profitable partnerships with the West. Through aid and trade, the West has enabled these thugocracies to flourish in Africa and repress Africans. The fact of the matter is that the West is interested only in “stability” in Africa. That simply means, in any African country, they want a “guy they can do business with.” The business they want to do in Africa is the oil business, the (blood) diamond business, the arms sales business, the coffee and cocoa export business, the tourism business, the luxury goods export business and the war on terrorism business. They are not interested in the African peoples’ business, the human rights business, the rule of law business, the accountability and transparency business and the fair and free elections business.
Western diplomats meeting in Berlin agreed, “The Ethiopian political opposition is weak, disunited, and out of touch with the average Ethiopian.” Who is the “average Ethiopian” whose contact is so highly prized and coveted? It seems s/he has an average life expectancy at birth of less than 45 years. S/he lives on less than $USD 1 per day. S/he is engaged in subsistence agriculture eking out a living. S/he survives on a daily intake of 800 calories (starvation level). S/he can neither read nor write. If s/he is sick, she has a 1 chance in 39,772 persons to see a doctor, 1 in 828,000 to see a dentist, 1 in 4,985 chance to see a nurse. She has little or no access to family planning services, reproductive health and emergency obstetric services and suffers from high maternal mortality during childbirth. She is a victim of gender discrimination, domestic violence and female genital mutilation. She has fewer employment and educational opportunities than the “average” man and is not paid equal pay for equal work. S/he is likely to die from malaria and other preventable infectious diseases, severe shortages of clean water and poor sanitation. The “average” Ethiopian youth is undereducated, underemployed and underappreciated with little opportunity for social mobility or economic self-sufficiency.
It is true that the Ethiopian “political opposition is weak and disunited”. But Western governments seem to be conveniently oblivious of the reasons for the disarray in the Ethiopian opposition. For two decades, Meles Zenawi and his regime have done everything in their power to keep the opposition divided, defeated, discombobulated and dysfunctional. In 2005, he rounded up almost all of the major opposition political and civic leaders, human rights advocates, journalists and dissidents in the country and jailed them for nearly two years on bogus charges of genocide, among many others.
“Karuturi’s First Corn Crop in Ethiopia Destroyed,” announced the headline. Karuturi Global Ltd., the Indian multinational agro company, is today the proud owner of “2,500 sq km of virgin, fertile land – an area the size of Dorset, England-” in Ethiopia. Truth be told, Karuturi did not ask for this bountiful giveaway, nor did it lay eyes on it when it was presented with a 50-year “lease” on a golden platter by the ruling regime in Ethiopia. Karuturi was offered the land together with generous tax breaks and other perks for £150 a week ($USD245). Karuturi’s business model is simple: “Ask not what Karuturi can do for Ethiopia, but what Ethiopians can do for Karuturi.” Karuturi is in Ethiopia for only one thing: Profit and more profits. Just as it has built “dikes to enclose its plantations from flood water”, it also maintains a social, psychological and security enclosure to insulate itself from the local Gambella community.
When Senator Obama became President, his “Africa Agenda” revolved around three basic objectives including “strengthening relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa.” Over the past two years, what we have seen in Africa is a whole lot of deepening repression, human rights violations and corruption in Africa. We have seen very little “accountability, democracy building, the rule of law, judicial reform” and the rest of it. Much to our dismay, upon becoming President Obama morphed from a “confronter” to an accommodator of Africa’s notorious human rights violators. The U.S. should stop subsidizing Africa’s thugtatorships through its aid policy and hit the panhandling thieves in the pocketbook. If the Obama administration is committed to battling corruption as ‘one of the great struggles of our time’, as it has so often declared, it needs to undertake a thorough and complete investigation of aid money given to African dictators. In November 2009, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley stated that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current [Ethiopian] prime minister’s party.” No official report has been issued to date on the investigation. (Is it unreasonable to suppose that the results of the investigation have not been publicly released because the allegations of misuse of U.S. aid are confirmed?)
The Ultimate Question of 2011 in Ethiopia
The ultimate question of Year 2011 in Ethiopia is not whether “.04” percent of the Ethiopian population is living in the lap of luxury and wallowing in a bottomless ocean of stolen cash. The ultimate question is whether “99.6” percent of the Ethiopian population was able to keep its head above water better than it did in 2010, 2009, 2008…, 2005…2000….
