In part three of this series, I indicated that there are major social and economic hurdles ordinary Ethiopians face each day that should compel Ethiopian opposition groups within and outside the country and the rest of us to make is their singular business to advance the cause of unity and stop bickering among themselves {www:ad infinitum}. More than any single factor, it is their quarrelsome behaviors and actions and their divisions that prolong the agony of the Ethiopian people. The lives and well-being of ordinary Ethiopians are not improving at all. In some critical areas such as incomes, inequality, graft and corruption, concentration of wealth, education, health, shelter, sanitation and employment things are getting worse. {www:Hyperinflation} continues unabated; and the governing party is in no position to contain this havoc. It is its own creation and some folks actually benefit from substantial rises in the cost of living and from shortages. There is a growing perception among ordinary Ethiopians that the Diaspora aggravates the problem.
My argument for unity is straight forward. It is the moral obligation of anyone and everyone who believes in Ethiopia and in the Ethiopian people to do the opposite of what the TPLF/EPRDF regime does so effectively to the Ethiopian people: divide and rule. All indicators show that there a huge disconnect between what top officials of the governing party say and what they do to alleviate the problems ordinary Ethiopians face. So, those who believe that Ethiopians are not being served by their government have no excuse not to close ranks and work for the same goals. For example, high ethnic officials show greater dedication for and commitment to their ethnic bases than they do to the entire country and its diverse population. When and if it suits them, they show affinity to Ethiopia and tend to appeal to the Ethiopian people as a whole, for example with regard to the financing of the Renaissance Dam. This duality is calculated to serve a strategic and not a national purpose. It is part of divide and rule and part of keeping the society in permanent suspense.
The strategy of divide and rule and keeping the society in permanent suspense operate together because political and social actors who oppose the system have yet to wake up from their slumber and work relentlessly and consistently in support of the vast majority of the Ethiopian people who seek justice, fair play, equality and opportunity now and not decades from now. Division within the opposition camp is a major source of strength for the governing party. Those who want political pluralism must recognize that Ethiopia is theirs to save and the Ethiopian people are their responsibilities to defend. They must accept the notion that Ethiopia belongs to all of them; and that its shame is equally their shame. I refer to continued poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease that afflict millions. Ethiopia is still identified as “one of the hungriest and unhealthiest nations on this planet.” It is still poor and technologically backward despite US billions of dollars of aid that continues to pour into the pockets of a few. Aid is now contributing not only to the acquisition of higher incomes and wealth for the few; but is also to regional disparities and repression. More billions of foreign aid will not transform the Ethiopian economy. Only empowered Ethiopians can improve their lives and the status of the country.
Why is Ethiopia still poor?
Ethiopia has been and continues to be the world’s experimental laboratory in development in general and poverty alleviation in particular. For the aid business, this experimentation will continue because donors serve their own national interests first, and would not care if Ethiopia’s poverty persists for decades to come. A weak, dependent and hungry Ethiopia generates business for many in the aid community. There is no altruism. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that assumed political power in 1991 has benefitted substantially from increased aid that now exceeds more than US$3 billion a year, US$ 1 billion coming from the United States, the largest bilateral donor. Today, Ethiopia is the largest aid recipient in Sub-Saharan Africa and the fourth largest in the world, after Afghanistan, Iraq and Indonesia.
If aid would move a country from abject poverty to sustainable and equitable development, Ethiopia would have achieved it by now. Donors pump in billions without measuring impact on the ground; and without a sense of who ultimately benefits from Western taxpayer dollars. There is no accountability to the Ethiopian people. The current Western preoccuption with Anti-Terrorism in the Horn of Africa compels them to place singular premium on peace and stability rather than human rights and sustainable and equitable development that emanates from popular participation and the rule of law. They tend to offer band-aid when people face famine and starvation instead of pushing for rapid reform and investments in smallholder agriculture.
The case of agricultural production tells the disastrous and ineffective nature of aid in the country. Donors ignore prerequisites such land tenure reform, a pro-poor and private sector regulatory framework, voice and participation, the rule of law and so on that will make aid at least more effective.
There is no reason for Ethiopians to go hungry. The country possesses ample natural and human resources including “arable land for crop and animal farming,” and water resources that are the envy of many countries such as Egypt and the Sudan. Ethiopia is the ‘water tower of Africa.’ Yet, irrigated agriculture is among the least developed and accounts for only 1 percent of farming. Massive aid, substantial remittances estimated by an internal World Bank study at US$3.5 billion {www:per annum}, millions of hectares of fertile and irrigable lands and huge human capital have not made a dent on the country’s intractable poverty. Opponents of the regime have immense data in their hands to shame the regime now and not a decade from now. But, they need to speak with one voice and pull in the same direction.
The UNDP estimates that {www:illicit} outflow of funds under the current regime is in excess of US$8.345 billion. Last year, Global Financial Integrity estimated that illicit outflow from Ethiopia amount to US$11 billion. The Prime Minister conceded that a few privileged Ethiopians have US$2 billion in foreign banks. Aid contributes these forms of plunder and scandalous activities. Most of Ethiopia’s pervasive aid comes from Western sources. Those in the Diaspora can and should challenge whether or not these donors live up to their own values of freedom, empowerment, free enterprise and the evolution of a robust domestic private sector in granting generous monies to a repressive, discriminatory and corrupt governing elite. Massive corruption and illicit outflow from one of the poorest and aid dependent countries in the world can be challenged using available and credible data.
Although estimates vary from country to country, experts say that more than 30 percent of foreign aid is ‘stolen’ through a variety of contractual and other schemes. Where does the money go is a legitimate question to pose. More than 87 percent of Ethiopians rely heavily on agriculture and related activities to sustain life. Yet, only an estimated 17 percent of agricultural produce is marketed properly. Only 17 percent of the country is urbanized. There are more than 7 million orphans. Unemployment among youth is among the highest in the world. Ethiopia’s largest export is labor, with hundreds of thousands immigrating to all corners of the world, especially to the Middle East.
In countries that are nationalistic and all inclusive, education serves as a ticket out of poverty. In Ethiopia today, education does not necessarily lead to jobs. In development, the lead and primary responsibility of any government is to feed and shelter its population. In Ethiopia, this is not the case. The East Asian and Pacific region miracle countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and increasingly emerging economies such as Bangladesh, China, India, and successful economies in Africa such as Botswana, Mauritius, Cape Verde, Ghana and others invested and still invest heavily in agriculture. Most recently, the government of Ghana secured US$100 million in soft loans from the World Bank to invest into agriculture in the North. This investment will offer job and income generating opportunities to thousands of Ghanaian youth.
A hungry and unhealthy population cannot produce. It is for the same reason that these and other successful economies invest heavily into quality primary, secondary and tertiary education and into comprehensive and quality health care. The Ethiopian government tells donors that it has trained thousands of health extension personnel. It says the same thing about agricultural services. Indicators show that health services are among the least developed in the world. The small island nation of Seychelles avails quality health services to the remotest village. India overcame recurring famine by investing heavily in agriculture (the Green Revolution) to which aid contributed. The government made substantial investments in the fertilizer industry so that farmers would have adequate access to nationally produced fertilizers.
China’s agriculture and rural sectors were transformed by the Chinese themselves without much aid from outside. This structural transformation eliminated recurring famine and hunger and improved wellbeing substantially. It is for this reason that I continue to suggest that a ‘Green’ type of smallholder based revolution is the single most important transformer of economic and social life in Ethiopia. It will have the greatest impact on the greatest number of people and would remove one of the sources of shame for all of us. Would the TPLF/EPRDF regime invest heavily into a smallholder revolution and release the productive potential of Ethiopian farmers and others in the rural sector? Would the aid community insist that the Ethiopian government changes policies to advance the cause of sustainable and equitable development? I doubt it. The poor are easier to control and to manipulate that the well to do. There is no evidence that it is either willing or capable of introducing radical reforms that will make poor people owners of assets such as lands.
Believe it or not, high officials of the government argue that Ethiopia will achieve food self-sufficiency and security by farming out millions of hectares of its most fertile lands and water basins to foreign governments, firms and individuals from 36 countries, and to a few domestic allies all affiliated to the TPLF. As the Prime Minister noted a few months ago, gradually foreign firms are “taking hold of the pillars of the national economy” and Ethiopians face the risk of losing these pillars and losing their country. The systemic causes and linkages emanate from single party and endowment dominance of the pillars of the economy.
The TPLF created and sponsored conglomerate EFFORT that controls at least 30 diverse enterprises, and the Saudi and Gulf States sponsored and financed conglomerate MEDROC group managed by Sheikh Al Amoudi controls 30 other large and diverse enterprises. Combine these monopolies and deduct the implications. They literally crowd-out the rest of Ethiopians. This is among the reasons why the national domestic private sector is among the weakest in Africa. There is nothing on the horizon to change the roles of these monopolies.
In a recent Al-Jazeera sponsored debate on land grab, a prominent Indian economist said that “foreigners have more power and influence than Ethiopians in their own home country.” Granting Ethiopian waters and fertile farmlands to foreign interests instead of raising the capabilities of Ethiopian smallholders and encouraging nationals to invest in commercial agriculture takes away the key sources of comparative advantage the country and its population possess. Foreign owned large scale commercial farms will not transform Ethiopian society for the better. As designed, they will make Ethiopian society more dependent and more vulnerable than ever before. For details, I urge the reader to read my latest book, The Great Land Giveaway: yemeret neteka ena kirimit in Ethiopia.
Contradicting Ethiopian government officials, including the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister–who pronounced, on a visit to India, that smallholder farming is inefficient, and ineffective–most foreign experts and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank argue that:
i) Smallholder farms are more productive than large-scale commercial farms;
ii) 400 million farms around the globe, with less than one ha of land, are in a position to double or triple their harvest. In Punjab, India, smallholders raised their output from one ton per ha to 4-5 tons per ha after the introduction and wide-spread use of Green revolution that transformed Indian agriculture forever. Indian firms are among the “new farmland colonizers” in Ethiopia at the invitation of the government. They want to secure foods for Indian consumers and are planning ahead to secure food security. Who is thinking of future generations of Ethiopians and their food security?
iii) Next door in Kenya where smallholder based farming is developed, 27 tractors are deployed per 100 SQ km of arable land; in Ethiopia, only 2 tractors per 100 SQ km. The governing party is only interested in securing wealth for its core and allies and in maintaining power.
Just reflect on what top officials, including the Prime Minister tell the world. ‘Inflation is common in growth economies. There is no famine; only hunger’ and so on. They justify that which cannot be defended statistically. Inflation will be minimal if productivity increases. Hunger will be history if agricultural productivity was the norm and not the exception. The Ethiopian government’s priority is to meet the basic needs of the population and not to enrich itself and its supporters.
“Smallholder-based productivity growth is the most leveraged pathway by which we can address poverty reduction,” says Prabhu Pingali, a leading agricultural expert who also criticizes land grab. In its seminal report on food aid and dependency in Ethiopia, Oxfam noted that “Food aid is not the best way to alleviate poverty.” Rather, the best way is to boost the capabilities of Ethiopian smallholders. Heavy investment in a smallholder revolution in Ethiopia is therefore a smart policy for any government that is dedicated to the country and its diverse population. The benefits are two-fold: it reduces poverty and increases incomes; and eliminates under-nutrition or malnutrition from which millions suffer. Consumers will have access to cheaper food. Farmers with more incomes will afford to send their children to school. Mothers will afford to seek medical treatment. Instability and insecurity will ease.
The government will generate more revenues. Eliminating or at least mitigating the sources of drought–that India and others have done successfully—is smart public policy for another reason. According to Oxfam, drought costs Ethiopia US$1.1 billion per year, an amount that exceeds government investments in agriculture, and USAID to Ethiopia. Investments in smallholder farming by removing the policy, structural and input hurdles that keep the poor in their place and the country on a low level agricultural productivity track is responsible governance. The cause to the tragedy is not nature but poor and repressive governance that alienates the population from ‘their government’ and its institutions.
Take a look at global surveys and conclusions. In recent surveys by the Gallop Poll, the Legatum Prosperity Index, Freedom House and the Wall Street Journal as well as assessments by the World Bank and the IMF, it is clear that the governing party is totally detached from the population: it does not serve them at all.
The vast majority do not trust their government, its leaders and institutions. Only 30 percent of those surveyed approve what the government is doing. Only 21 percent are convinced or are satisfied that the government is doing anything and everything meaningful to address their problems. Only 19 percent believe that the governing party respects free and fair elections. This is why the country is ranked 101st in the administration of the rule of law without which sustainable and equitable development is unthinkable. Application of the rule is fundamental in advancing opportunity.
In the 21st century, no country can achieve sustainable and equitable development without quality education that leads to jobs and business creating opportunities. In the 2011 UN Human Development Index, Ethiopia ranks 107th, an absolute failure for a poor country that the regime claims is growing by leaps and bounds each year for several years. No single country can aspire to join middle income status without allowing the power of information technology such as mobile phones, the Internet, television and other media that unleash the productive potential of its population, especially girls and other youth. There are 5 mobile phones for 100 people. Only 29 percent of the population has access to sanitation and only 7.5 percent to safe drinking water. At only 0.4 percent, access to electricity is a luxury in Ethiopia as is access to good shelter. Access to financial and banking institutions is only a dream for most. Thirty-three percent have to walk 20 km to access the closet bank. Chronic unemployment is taken as a way of life. Twenty-one percent of the population is unemployed. Some people will never dream to hold a job in their lifetime. They may be born poor and may die poor.
More than 5 million people depend on remittances to survive and to perhaps to enjoy luxuries such as mobile phones that they would obtain otherwise. What about the rest who have no relatives abroad or are not connected to the ruling party for sheer survival?
The structure of the economy is stuck. Small enterprises are the largest employers in the so-called modern private sector, with an estimated 29,083 enterprises according to government statistics. Of these, 93 percent are grain-mills. Can you imagine transforming the structure of the economy with grain-mills? Indigenous production of traditional clothes, metal based supplies, medicines and others are shunned instead of coveted, protected, further developed and modernized as national resources, Most are forced to give way to imported substitutes. It is as if products and services of Ethiopian origin have little or no value at all. Nationally oriented governments give attention to and protect indigenous products and give them prominence.
The government of Namibia is a prime example in protecting indigenous culture, products, natural resources and peoples. It has gone further than any by incorporating environmental laws in its national constitution. Namibia consists of different nationality or ethnic groups who have decided to live with one another as Namibians. They interact with one another as Namibians and accept Namibia as their common country. They protect their environment for future generations. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Ethiopian government does this. Remember, Namibia is one the newest African countries; and Ethiopia the oldest. Can the governing party explain why it allows foreign governments and businesses to destroy the remaining forests and misuse scarce and precious water resources, for example, to produce flowers for export while Ethiopians go hungry each day? Deforestation continues at alarming rate of 88,000 ha per year. One of the “hungriest and unhealthiest countries in the world” is at the same time one of the few countries in the world whose government is not protecting the environment.
In the 2011 Legatum Prosperity Index, Ethiopia is in the bottom 3 of 110 countries surveyed in terms of per capita income and wellbeing along with the Central African Republic (CAR) and Zimbabwe. Citizens with low incomes cannot buy what they need to survive. They cannot afford to buy medicine or to build homes. Despite its huge population, Ethiopia ranks 76th in market size because there is no broad economic participation in the economy. Wealth and incomes are highly skewed and concentrated. In a country that heavily ethnicized through the kilil system, the domestic market and economy are fractured. Lack of market integration associated with lack of national cohesion is costly to the economy and to entrepreneurs. The cost of doing business is among the highest in the world because of ethnic division, market fragmentation, collusion, administrative and state capture corruption. This is why someone in Addis Ababa characterizes Ethiopia as a country that resembles a “person who travels in the darkness of night not knowing where he is going.”
All foreign visitors to Ethiopia are alarmed by the gaping differences in incomes, wealth and wellbeing between the small political, economic and social elite that wield political power and the vast majority of the population that is poor. Ethiopia ranks 20th out of 110 countries surveyed. Similar to this Legatum finding, Mo Ibrahim places the country 35th out of 53 African countries. The 2011 UN Human Development Index that ranks Ethiopia 174th out of 187 countries is consistent with other surveys. This survey is more significant in that it covers wealth and incomes, education, life expectancy, health and sanitation, shelter and other basic needs. A key element in this multidimensional survey is gross inequality between those who have and those who do not; between who can eat and those who cannot; between those who are employed and those who have no access to opportunities; between those who benefit from growth and those who are left out. “Ethiopia’s HDI is 0.363 which gives the country a rank of 174 out of 187 countries with comparable data.” Human development index for Sub-Saharan African countries increased from 0.365 in 1980 to 0.463 in 2011 while it declined in Ethiopia, placing it below the regional average. In other words, Ethiopians are worse off than the rest of Africans.
This begs the question: where is the evidence that growth has benefitted most Ethiopians? There is no evidence and the UN Human Development Index is the best evidence one can offer to prove the point.
Part four is divided into two sections for ease of reading a technical piece. Part four (b) of five will discuss the relationships and distinctions between growth and development, the perceptions of the Diaspora who travel back and forth to Ethiopia; and seven critical hurdles Ethiopian society faces today.
For those interested in providing feedback and in ordering my new book, “The Great Land Giveaway: yemeret neteka ena kirimit in Ethiopia,” the author can be reached at: [email protected]
(AFP) – Ethiopian authorities The Woyanne junta charged 24 people with terrorism offenses Thursday including an opposition politician and a journalist, a government spokesman said.
“They are accused under the anti-terrorism law of being members of a terrorist network and abetting, aiding and supporting a terrorist group,” Shimeles Kemal told AFP.
Prominent opposition leader Andualem Arage and journalist Eskinder Nega were among those charged, the latest in a string of opposition supporters to be accused of plotting against the state.
They were arrested on September 14 on suspicion of being involved in “terrorist activities that would likely wreak havoc” added Shimeles.
The maximum sentence for supporting a terrorist group is 15 years, according to Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism legislation.
The suspects are accused of receiving support from neighboring Eritrea to carry out attacks in Ethiopia, according to the charge sheet.
“They have received from the Eritrean government weapons and explosives for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities in Ethiopia,” Shimeles said, reading from the court-issued document.
Eritrea and Ethiopia are long time foes, with both accusing each other of supporting proxy rebel forces to destabilise each other.
Eskinder and Andualem were arrested on September 14 on suspicion of being involved in “terrorist activities.”
Opposition member Berhane Nega, a former mayor of Addis Ababa currently living in exile in the United States, was also charged with terrorism.
“He is being charged in absentia,” Shimeles said.
But opposition member Negassa Gidada, a former president of Ethiopia, called the charges “laughable.”
“What they’ve tried to do is make the people shut their mouths. Unacceptable. Unacceptable,” he told AFP.
Ethiopia’s media is among the most repressed in Africa, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which calls the country’s anti-terrorism law “far-reaching.”
The watchdog reports six journalists have been arrested since June.
Kenya Wildlife Service rangers in Taveta, a boarder town in southern Kenya, have arrested 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The immigrants were arrested at the Tsavo West national park. Sources said that they had been trailed for several hours by KWS rangers on patrol after being spotted in the park.
According to the Senior Warden in charge of the park, Samuel Rukaria, the immigrants did not have any identification documents and are a threat to tourism in the region. “We have intensified security surveillance in the park after the al-shabaab issued threats to Kenya a few weeks ago.
The immigrants can do anything and that is why we cannot take any risk with the issue of security,” said Rukaria. He said they suspected the immigrants were attempting to cross the border to Tanzania. “The group was being ferried in a canter lorry when we pursued them but the lorry driver managed to escape on foot and left the foreigners stranded in the park,” he said.
He said that the 35 men in their early 20s could not speak English or Kiswahili. The warden said that they are investigating the matter as they suspect the immigrants were up to no good. KWS rangers who carried out the operation lamented that the police did not cooperate with them in arresting the immigrants.
(This article is part of an Ethiopian Review weekly series that is intended to highlight and help stop the growing problem of domestic violence in the Ethiopian community.)
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Many people who are abused by their intimate partner just want the violence and abuse to stop, but they don’t want the relationship to end. But even when they do want to get out of the relationship with the abuser, it’s hard.
Under the best of circumstances, it is not easy to end a relationship with an intimate partner. Love, family, shared memories, and commitment are bonds that are hard to break. Cultural or religious beliefs may be barriers to ending a marriage. Immigration status may be another obstacle. While ending a relationship is hard for everyone, women who are abused face the added risks of physical, emotional and psychological harm. There are risks that come with every decision an abused woman makes.
There are many good reasons why it may be difficult to be safe or to end a relationship with an abusive partner. The choices abused women are faced with are not risk-free. Leaving is not always the safest or best option.
Risks of Getting Help or Deciding to Leave
Risks of physical violence and psychological harm
Threats and violence will get worse, resulting in harm to victim, children, friends, family, or pets.
Abuser will follow through on suicide threats and harm himself.
Continued harassment, stalking, and verbal and emotional attacks, especially if the abuser has ongoing contact (such as during court ordered visitation).
Serious physical harm and/or death.
Rape or sexual abuse.
Risks to Children
Emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; possibility of increased risks to children if the abuser has unsupervised or poorly supervised visitation.
Losing children if the abuser kidnaps them or gets custody of them.
Negative impact on children as a result of “breaking up the family.”
Risks to Finances
Concern about being able to pay legal fees.
Reduced standard of living – possible loss of home, possessions, neighborhood.
Losing income or job – possible loss of partner’s income, may have to quit a job to relocate or to take care of the children alone, may be prevented from working because of threats and harassment.
Risks to Relationship
Losing partner, losing the relationship.
Losing help with children, transportation, household.
Losing caretaker (for older women or women with disabilities).
Risks to Relationships with Family, Friends and Community
Negative responses from friends, family members, and helping professionals.
Not being believed or taken seriously, being blamed, being pressured to take actions that don’t feel right.
Being judged as a bad wife, partner, or mother.
Making people feel uncomfortable about “taking sides” or not wanting to get involved.
Worrying about being a burden to friends and family by asking them for help.
Being pressured to stay in the relationship because of religious and/or cultural beliefs or because the children “need a father.”
Worry that actions of people trying to help may actually make the situation more dangerous.
Safety Planning & Risk Assessment
No abused woman has control over her partner’s violence, but women can and do find ways to reduce their risk of harm. Safety planning is a tool to help you to identify options, evaluate those options, and come up with a plan to reduce your risk when faced with the threat of harm or with actual harm.
There’s no right or wrong way to develop a safety plan. Use what applies. Change it or add to it to reflect your particular situation. Make it your own, then review it regularly and make changes as needed.
You may want to write down your safety plan, or you may not. If you think it would be safe for you to have a written safety plan and it would be helpful to you, then by all means do it. But if you think there is a chance your abuser might find it, maybe it is better to just think it all through and not write it down. Do what you think is the safest thing for you.
Use What You Already Know
If you have been abused by an intimate partner, you probably know more about safety planning and risk assessment than you might think. Being in a relationship with an abusive partner – and surviving – takes a lot of skill and resourcefulness. Any time you do or say something as a way to protect yourself and/or your children, you are “safety planning.” “Risk assessment” is when you decide if taking a specific action will make things better or worse. You do it all the time, without even thinking about it.
Think It Through
Now that you know more about what safety planning is, it can be really helpful to assess risks and make safety plans by thinking through all the issues. There are certain things that are helpful to consider when planning for your future safety:
Staying with your partner.
Ending your relationship.
Using services.
Involving the police.
Safety Planning for Every Situation
Safety plans can be made for a variety of different situations:
For dealing with an emergency, such as when you are threatened with physical violence or abuse has occurred.
For continuing to live with or to date a partner who has been abusive.
For protecting yourself after you have ended a relationship with an abusive partner.
If you are planning to leave your partner or have already left, be aware that abusers are often more violent during times of separation. This couldincrease your risk for harm, including stalking and serious or life-threatening injury. Making a separation safety plan can help reduce the risks to you and your children during and after a separation.
Identify Your Options
The value of any safety plan depends on coming up with options that make sense to you and that you can use. This publication will provide information on the help available from local domestic violence programs and the criminal justice system. But just as important is the help and information you may get from other places, including your own family and social supports. Some of the people and places where you might find support include:
counselor, social worker, therapist;
doctor, dentist, nurse;
friend, family, neighbor;
a spiritual leader or member of your faith community;
employee assistance program (EAP), supervisor, union, co-worker;
staff member at women’s centers or senior centers;
teacher, school counselor, parent teacher association member; and/or
department of social services caseworker.
The important thing is for you to identify all the possible people who might be willing and able to help you. You don’t have to wait for an emergency to ask for help. It’s a good idea to talk to people and find out what they’re willing and able to do for you. That way, you’ll know in advance if you have a place to stay, where to go for help with money, or a safe person who can keep copies of important papers for you.
If it is safe for you to do so, you may want to make a list with their phone numbers so that you’ll have it in case of an emergency. If you don’t know where to go in your community, you can call the NYS Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline for information about a program in your community.Most people really do want to help.
The more specific you can be, the more likely it is that you’ll get the help you need. Sometimes the people you trust may mean well and offer you suggestions that don’t seem right to you. You will have to decide if this information is best for you. It’s your call.
What I have grown to dislike is the reading of articles predicting the {www:imminent} collapse of Meles and his regime. Often written by people who sound serious, the articles affirm, with a nauseating regularity, that the regime is on its last legs without, however, giving any evidence supporting their prediction, except the state of generalized dissatisfaction of the Ethiopian society. Recently, the tendency to predict has reached a new high owning to the expected domino effect of the Arab Spring, as though some similarities were enough to cause a {www:momentous} event as the overthrow of a political system.
While I understand that such predictions express impatience at the increasingly repressive nature of the regime and its arrogant treatment of the opposition, unfortunately, they also reveal an irresponsible and reckless optimism. Does it require anything more than plain common sense to understand that talks about an imminent collapse do no more than demobilize people? Moreover, underestimation of what people are up against is likely to suppress the resources that they need in order to prevail. If well-intentioned people keep telling that the regime is tottering, what else is one to do but wait safely for the announced event to happen? That is why I sometimes wonder whether the predictors are not hidden agents of the regime: indeed, what better means to demobilize a people than to feed it with illusions?
That there is a general dissatisfaction in Ethiopia is a fact. That this dissatisfaction can only intensify as the regime remains deaf to calls for reasonable and mutually beneficial reforms is another given. Even so, those who display a misplaced optimism should understand that generalized dissatisfaction is a necessary condition of popular uprising but not a sufficient one. As shown by many countries around the world, repressive regimes can last for decades despite generalized discontent. To take a very recent example, it took more than forty years for Libyans to get rid of Gadhafi, and they did so, not by wishful thinking, but by an armed uprising. What is more, the necessity of generalized discontent does not entail the predictability of a prompt popular uprising. A largely accepted {www:axiom} among theoreticians of revolution is that “revolutions are not made; they happen.” Accordingly, not only wishing for revolution does not make it happen, but also even a call for revolt by an organized party often remains ineffective. In other words, revolution is a complex and objective phenomenon and, as such, not obtainable at will.
From the nature of popular insurrection emerges what needs to be done. Stop predicting or announcing the fall of Meles and his regime; instead, start working for its occurrence. Essentially, this means two things: getting ready for a long and arduous fight and doing everything necessary to bring down the regime. The latter will fall only if, beyond being dissatisfied, people and leaders incessantly work toward such a result by using all available overt and hidden means. When people engage in this kind of fight, the first thing that they expel from their thinking is the goal of a quick victory and, subsequently, the possibility that anything could happen without great sacrifices and hardships. All to the better if, in the process, a quick result is obtained, but that must never be a target.
It is my belief that if the regime could detect in the present dissatisfaction, not the wishful expectation of an impending collapse, but the {www:gestation} of a stubborn will to fight by all means, it would certainly entertain the idea of an alternative policy. What encourages the regime to pursue the road of totalitarianism is the conviction that its opponents are not serious, a conviction that the recurring divisions of the opposition further fortify. Unless we adapt the level of our struggle to the political challenge, our miscalculations, unwarranted expectations, and underestimations give life to the regime. Worse yet, in not adjusting our fight to the level of the challenge that we face, we unintentionally suppress the resources that are dormant in the society.
Here I hasten to add that there is no need for some readers to pinpoint contradiction. I am referring to a recent article in which I advocated the path of power sharing as the best way to resolve Ethiopia’s political deadlock. Among the many reactions triggered by the article, the criticism that Meles is incapable of working with the opposition, pertinent as it was, overlooked the evident component that Meles will come to the negotiation table only if the opposition shows some strength. And how else is strength obtained but by how determined the opposition is, which determination is itself a product of its correct assessment of the challenge it faces? Far from weakening the struggle against the regime, as some readers suggested, the article was actually a call for a renewed effort.
More importantly, as implied in the title, the article dealt with “Meles’s dilemma” by arguing that nothing of what he projects to do can become real unless he opens the political playing field. Put otherwise, the article reflected on the self-contradictoriness of his project to bring about a developmental state without seriously changing the existing political system. The article also noted that the ball is in Meles’s court so that his ambition to become a “great leader” awaits the glorious gesture of initiating a grand coalition. For instance, nothing is more pathetic than to see Meles, the leader of one of the poorest countries in the world, participating in the G20 meetings when it is so obvious that his reluctance to reform blocks Ethiopia’s development.
Obviously, a reflection on Meles’s dilemma does not intend to demobilize the opposition; it simply offers an opportunity for Meles to get the best deal he can, both in securing his position and realizing his personal ambition, before the tumults of revolution reach him. Above all, the formation of a grand coalition is also the best deal for Ethiopia, since it gives all Ethiopians the opportunity to learn and practice the democratic culture and forge the institutions that sustain it. What Meles must understand is that the fear of reform should be tempered by the knowledge that reforms work when they are timely. In the meantime, however, what the opposition must do is to upgrade its struggle with new determination and better means.
For the past four decades, a plague of cold-blooded thieves has descended upon Africa like a swarm of blood sucking ticks. These thieves masquerading as leaders have been trafficking in Africa’s natural resources and trading in the wealth created by the blood, tears and sweat of African peoples. Now U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, America’s top law enforcement officer, says to Africa’s biggest thieves: “You can run with Africa’s stolen treasures but you can’t hide them in America!”
In July 2010, in a breathtaking act of legal diplomacy, U.S. Attorney General Holder travelled to meet Africa’s greatest kleptocrats in Uganda and delivered a staggering message: “The U.S. Department of Justice is launching a new Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative aimed at combating large-scale foreign official corruption and recovering public funds for their intended – and proper – use: for the people of our nations. We’re assembling a team of prosecutors who will focus exclusively on this work and build upon efforts already underway to deter corruption, hold offenders accountable, and protect public resources.” Holder’s move was so surreal and stunning that I described it as the equivalent of filing a sealed indictment against “La Commissione” – the Godfathers of the Bonnano, Columbo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
The Rape of Equatorial Guinea by the Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Family
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the 43-year old son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, is now facing asset seizures by the U.S. and other European governments. The U.S. has filed legal action to take away Mangue’s property valued at tens of millions of dollars because they were allegedly acquired with money stolen from the people of Equatorial Guinea. Mangue is the heir apparent and Minister of Forestry and Agriculture of that tiny west African nation with a population of 680,000, seventy percent of which lives below the poverty line. Mangue reportedly earns a monthly salary of USD$6,799.
U.S. law allows the government to seize cash, personal or real property of a person or entity if the government can trace the property to “specified unlawful activity”. Such activity includes foreign offenses involving “extortion”, “money laundering” or the “misappropriation, theft or embezzlement of public funds by or for the benefit of a public official” of a foreign government. (18 U.S. C. sections 981 (a) (1) (c); 1956; 1957.) Mangue is not facing any criminal charges at this time and the proceedings are against the items of property alone in the form of “United States v. One White Crystal-Covered Bad Tour Glove…” Mangue becomes a third party claimant if he decides to defend.
Ali Baba and his forty thieves have nothing on the Teodoro Obiangs and Africa’s Forty Thieves. Neither do the European colonizers who had plundered and picked Africa’s bones clean. At least they left behind a few bones behind for the benefit of the archaeologists. Africa’s thieving dictators over the past four decades have stripped Africa so completely that they are now gang-mugging Africa’s ghost. As Africans die from famine, starvation, poverty, disease, civil war and conflict and suffer from illiteracy and economic woes, Teodoro Obiang and Africa’s Forty Thieves are spreading their empires of corruption to the four corners of the earth.
Let the facts speak for themselves:
Sudan. Dictator Omar al-Bashir, according to a WikiLeaks cablegram, has amassed fortune that boggles the mind: “International Criminal Court [ICC] Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told [U.S.] Ambassadors Rice and Wolff on March 20 [2009] that [Ocampo] would put the figure of Sudanese President Bashir’s stash of money at possibly $9 billion.”
Zimbabwe. In 2010, dictator Robert Mugabe announced his plan to sell “about $1.7 billion of diamonds in storage” (probably rejects of his diamond-crazed wife Grace). According to a Wikileaks cablegram, “a small group of high-ranking Zimbabwean officials (including Grace Mugabe) have been extracting tremendous diamond profits.” Mugabe is so greedy that he stole outright “£4.5 million from [aid] funds meant to help millions of seriously ill people.”
Kenya. The 2004 Kroll Report revealed that former president Daniel Arap Moi stole billions of dollars using a “web of shell companies, secret trusts and frontmen” and secreted the loot in 30 countries. Moi’s “relatives and associates of Mr. Moi siphoned off more than £1bn of government money.” Moi’s sons “Philip and Gideon – were reported to be worth £384m and £550m respectively.” Current president Mwai Kibaki stonewalled further action on the report, including prosecution of Moi.
Niger. In 2010, Niger’s state auditor reported that “at least 64 billion CFA francs [USD$128-million] were stolen from Niger’s state coffers under the government of former president Mamadou Tandja.”
Libya. Moamar Gadhafi is believed to have stashed $200bn dollars all over the world. Shortly after the Libyan uprising last February, the British Government announced that it expected to seize “around £20 billion in liquid assets of the Libyan regime, mostly in London.” The Swiss Government similarly issued an order for the immediate freeze of assets belonging to Gaddafi and his entourage in the amount of 613 million Swiss francs (USD$658 million), with an additional 205 million francs (USD$220 million) in paper or fiduciary operations. In 2008, Gadhafi’s Swiss holdings amounted to 5.7 billion in cash and 812 million francs in paper and fiduciary operations. In 2006, the Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund had investments of $70 billion. The U.S. has frozen $37 billion in Libyan assets.
Ethiopia. A few months ago, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) commissioned report from Global Financial Integrity (GFI) on “illicit financial flows” (money stolen by government officials and their cronies and stashed away in foreign banks) from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) revealed the theft of US$8.4 billion from Ethiopia, the second poorest country on the planet. The anti-corruption agency of the regime in Ethiopia reported in 2008 that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank in broad daylight never to be seen again. Not long ago, dictator Meles Zenawi publicly stated that 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports had simply vanished from the warehouses. He called a meeting of commodities traders and in a videotaped statement told the traders he will forgive them this time because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”. He threatened to “cut off their hands” if they should steal coffee in the future.
According to a recent Wikileaks cablegram, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the current ruling party in Ethiopia, “Upon taking power in 1991… liquidated non-military assets to found a series of companies whose profits would be used as venture capital to rehabilitate the war-torn Tigray region’s economy…[with] roughly US $100 million… Throughout the 1990s…, no new EFFORT [Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray owned and operated by TPLF] ventures have been established despite significant profits, lending credibility to the popular perception that the ruling party and its members are drawing on endowment resources to fund their own interests or for personal gain.” According to the World Bank, roughly half of the Ethiopian national economy is accounted for by companies held by an EPRDF-affiliated business group called the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). EFFORT’s freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms on loans from government banks.
Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt also have safely stashed their loot in various international banks although the Swiss government has frozen a few hundred million dollars secretly kept there. Others who have robbed their people blind (and pretty much have gotten away with it) include Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida, Guniea’s Lansana Conte, Togo’s Gnassingbe Eyadema, Gabon’s Omar Bongo, Burkina Faso’s Blaise Campore and Congo’s (Brazaville) Denis Sassou Nguesso. The story of official corruption, embezzlement, fraud, bribery, money-laundering, extortion and theft occurs with such monotonous regularity that a 2004 African Union report estimated that nearly $148 billion is lost to corruption annually in Africa.
Going After Africorruption, Inc.
In my commentary “Africorruption, Inc.”, I argued that the business of African “governments” is large part corruption. The majority of African “leaders” seize political power to operate sophisticated criminal enterprises to loot their national treasuries and resources. Stated simply, many African “governments” and “regimes” are kleptocracies which function in much the same way as the highly organized and centralized criminal enterprises that dominate the business of crime in the West. Attorney General Holder is now using against the biggest African thieves the same tools that have been used in one form or another for decades against drug lords, Mafiosi, organized crime figures and a variety of criminal syndicates engaged in racketeering. The legal strategy against American and African syndicates is now the same: hit the economic base of their criminal enterprises and confiscate the stolen loot.
The procedure in civil forfeiture cases is pretty straightforward and highly favors the government. In Mangue’s case, once the government establishes probable cause (reasonable belief) that the property (house, cars, etc.,) is subject to forfeiture or confiscation (by showing it was obtained by corruption, extortion, theft, etc.,), Mangue must prove by a “preponderance of the evidence” (more likely to be true than not true) that the properties can be traced to a legitimate source such as his monthly salary of USD$6,799. If he cannot prove that, the U.S. Government is entitled to keep the assets, auction them off and return the proceeds to the country. Perhaps not in this case, as that would involve giving the money stolen by the son to the father who runs the theft ring.
From the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to an “African Racketeer Influenced Corruption Act” (AfRICA)?
For decades, the U.S. Government has been fighting organized crime using the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) (18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968) in one form or another. Now the U.S. is pursuing what may be informally described as “African Racketeer Influenced Corruption Act (Af-RICA)”. I have previously argued that contemporary Africa has largely been reduced to a collection of thugocracies. I defined a “thugocracy” as a government of thieves, for thieves, by thieves. Simply stated, much of Africa today is under thugtatorships run by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugtators) in designer suits who have privatized the continent’s resources for their personal benefit. 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. What legal tool could be more effective than RICO or Af-RICA to restore good governance in Africa?
Africa’s thugtators and their henchmen are now coming under the microscope of the U.S. Justice Department. They are viewed as part of an international organized criminal syndicate. Few would have realistically expected to see the U.S. going after even a single corrupt and thieving African dictator; but it sends a chilling message to all the other African kleptocrats and their henchmen who launder billions of dollars every year in the U.S. buying businesses and homes and making “investments” in legitimate commercial enterprises.
Though the U.S. action against Mangue is encouraging, no one believes that the other thieves are next in line. After all, the U.S. knew about Mangue’s criminal enterprises for at least a decade before it took action. Time will tell if the U.S. is serious in using civil RICO-type proceedings against Africa’s thugtators or merely window dressing for media publicity. What is significant is the symbolic but chilling message it sends to all of the other cunning African thieves, their associates, business partners, investors, and all others in the U.S. who “directly or indirectly” facilitate and sustain official corruption in Africa. Regardless, it is heartwarming (and breathtaking) to know that the Obama Administration is at least considering seriously using civil forfeiture laws to deal with African dictators as organized criminals, syndicates and equivalents of Mafia bosses.
The Moral Duty of Every African
The United States could transform the bleak human rights landscape in Africa overnight by aggressively using civil forfeiture actions against the properties and bank accounts of Africa’s thieving dictators. One civil forfeiture action against each of the bloodthirsty African thugs could do more to usher democracy and respect for human rights in Africa than a century’s worth of human rights legislation or a horde of idle American diplomats shuffling to suck up to these thugtators.
Criminal defense lawyers know all too well that crooks and criminals fear loss of their stolen loot more than their liberty or even their lives. For a criminal nothing matters more that the loot he has stolen. If the U.S. could effectively investigate and aggressively seize the assets of Africa’s kleptocrats, the continent will witness significant improvements in human rights and governance overnight. There will surely be a dramatic reduction in corruption and an increase in the availability of significant resources from recovered assets for investment in infrastructure and other social programs for the African population. Help improve human rights in Africa: Finger the biggest African thieves hiding in America.
It is the civic and moral duty of every African to help the U.S. Justice Department catch Africa’s biggest thieves. It is very easy to do, and do it anonymously. Individuals with information about possible proceeds of foreign corruption in the United States, or funds laundered through institutions in the United States, should contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HIS) toll free at 866-347-2423 or send email to: [email protected]. If calling from outside of the U.S., the number is: 802-872-6199
BLOW THE WHISTLE ON AFRICA’S BIGGEST THIEVES HIDING IN AMERICA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia, NOW!
Photo insert: Equatorial Guinea village, Teodoro N. Obiang Mangue’s $38m Malibu, CA estate, Teodoro N. Obiang Mangue with hangers-on.
According to the Senior Warden in charge of the park, Samuel Rukaria, the immigrants did not have any identification documents and are a threat to tourism in the region. “We have intensified security surveillance in the park after the al-shabaab issued threats to Kenya a few weeks ago.