SUBJECT: VOA’S AMHARIC SERVICE CONDEMNED BY GOE – NEED FOR PROOF
¶1. This cable contains an action request. See paragraph
¶12.
¶2. SUMMARY: On November 8, Charge d’Affaires met with local
and London-based Voice of America correspondents. She used
the meeting to discuss U.S. policy regarding Ethiopia, the
role the VOA is playing in Ethiopia at a time when its
listenership is likely at record levels, and Government of
Ethiopia concerns regarding the objectivity of the VOA
Amharic service. She provided them with background
information on the country’s evolving political situation
and a brief on-the-record quote. Government of Ethiopia
unhappiness with the VOA Amharic service is well known and
increasingly loudly expressed — and now threatens to result
in the loss of vital coverage to Ethiopians. The most
recent flare-up in GOE anger at VOA results from a VOA
bulletin that calls for a stay-at-home strike and asks
security forces to refuse to follow orders. Post requests
confirmation on whether this item did in fact run on VOA and
if so, please provide guidance on how to respond. An
independent analysis of VOA’s Amharic reporting is badly
needed in order to respond to GOE concerns and ensure that
VOA is not jammed or receives interference. END SUMMARY.
———————————
SETTING AN AGENDA FOR COOPERATION
———————————
¶3. On November 8, Charge met with London-based VOA English
service correspondent Michael Drudge, along with local
stringers Iskender Firew and Meleskachew Amaha (the latter
still wearing bandages as a result of an October 26 beating
by unidentified assailants). Joining the meeting were the
Embassy’s A/DCM, PA Counselor, IO, PolOff, and FSN
Information Specialist.
¶4. Charge welcomed the journalists and consoled Meleskachew
on his injuries, telling him she had raised her concerns
about his assault with the Government. She noted the very
real need for VOA reporting at a time when Ethiopians are
unable to hear other independent voices — and that both the
Ethiopian people and the government were listening. She
expressed hope that, as a part of the U.S. Government, VOA
would be sensitive to U.S. policy issues and uphold its
history of fair and balanced reporting. Referring to
unconfirmed reports that the Government of Ethiopia may be
attempting to interfere with the reception of VOA, she noted
that, if true, it was a sign of how seriously VOA’s
reporting is taken. She cited a recent specific GOE
complaint (see below) and used it as an example of how
perceived bias can further impede the relationship between
the GOE and VOA. [NOTE: Since November 7, VOA reception in
Ethiopia has been increasingly unintelligible because of an
overlay to its frequency of Government-owned Radio Fana,
which has successfully reduced VOA’s ability to be heard.
END NOTE.]
¶5. Noting that she was well aware of the GOE’s blanket
reluctance to interact directly with the Amharic service,
the Charge said that it was still possible to report on
known GOE positions and important to present as broad a
spectrum of opinion as possible. COMMENT: One of the
problems is that VOA provides more news about the opposition
and its activities than any other news. Even if VOA does
not report GOE views, it could provide more news about other
events in the country. END COMMENT.
¶6. During a lively and positive Q&A, the Charge drew on
points presented to international correspondents at a
background briefing earlier in the day to explain U.S.
policy on the current situation. She described Ethiopia’s
current political situation and outlined the role the U.S.
and the broader international community are playing to
resolve the crisis and re-focus all sides on moving forward,
including the November 6 joint EU/U.S. statement. She
recapped what had taken place since internationally brokered
negotiations began in early October (and subsequently ended)
and noted her optimism that progress was still possible.
She said that dialogue — and a democratic future — is not
possible without renunciation of violence and cooperation
between the government and the opposition.
¶7. She called for the VOA’s help in focusing on the way
forward, citing the absence of other voices and Ethiopians’
always keen and increasing interest in VOA reporting
guarantee it a crucial place in getting balanced, accurate
information to them.
——————-
THE VOA IN ETHIOPIA
——————-
¶8. The current clampdown on private newspapers (in place
since November 2), combined with the state’s monopoly on
broadcast media and its content, has meant that Ethiopians
are increasingly relying on short-wave, local-language radio
broadcasts by the VOA (and, to a lesser extent, by Deutsche
Welle) for information on the rapidly evolving political
situation in the country. A side effect of this increased
prominence of VOA reporting has been ever-closer scrutiny of
its coverage, especially through the Amharic service, by the
government and its supporters. (NOTE: coverage by VOA’s
Tigrigna and Afaan Oromo services have escaped such
criticism of late, although the former came under fire
during the border war for alleged pro-Eritrean bias. Given
that the opposition is heavily based in the Amhara region,
the problem is specifically the Amharic service. END NOTE.)
¶9. The GOE’s perception of bias was demonstrated this week
by a November 7 letter to the Charge from State Minister of
Foreign Affairs Tekeda Alemu, who decried “the very
destructive role that the VOA Amharic service has been
playing in its broadcast to Ethiopia.” The letter goes on
to call the broadcast “one of the major sources of
instability…an instrument for stoking violence as well as
for advancing and propagating the policies of the most
hardliner section of the CUDP,” and “a transmitter of the
most destabilizing messages imaginable.”
¶10. Accompanying the letter was the Amharic text and an
English transcription of an excerpt from the news in the
Saturday, November 5 broadcast, during the height of the
violence in Addis Ababa, that gave the direct text from a
leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUDP).
This bulletin called for a stay-at-home strike beginning
November 7, to continue until CUDP leaders are released from
prison and the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF) agreed to negotiations. The
Ministry’s English translation of the excerpt closed with
what appeared to be a free-standing, unsourced statement:
“The law enforcement agencies and the defence forces who are
supposed to safeguard the safety of the public should
immediately refrain from implementing orders.” [NOTE: At
the time that VOA broadcast this information the CUDP leader
quoted was in hiding and was being sought by the Ethiopian
authorities. He was not authorized to speak for the CUDP.
But more worrisome still is the call for security and
defense forces to disobey orders. END NOTE.]
¶11. COMMENT: Government and EPRDF dissatisfaction with and
allegations of bias in VOA Amharic reporting are
longstanding. The last such round took place in June, when
VOA and DW local reporters lost their Ministry of
Information accreditation (and at least one VOA stringer
fled the country) and the state media carried denunciations
of the reporting of both. Whether or not actual reporting
carries biased or inaccurate information (and in general
that seems not to be the case), recent Post review of the
Amharic service does indicate that much coverage focuses on
opposition activities, both in the country and in the
Diaspora, with comparatively little illustrating other
points of view. The very reluctance of the GOE and its
supporters to engage with what it perceives as an opponent
may in fact be a substantial contributing factor in the
imbalance they perceive. END COMMENT.
¶12. ACTION ITEM: In order to reply to the Foreign
Ministry’s complaint, Post needs the complete text of the
VOA broadcast and specifically wishes to know if the item
calling on the armed forces to disobey orders was included.
Post also requests guidance on how to reply to this specific
complaint. Post would like independent data that would
allow provide a better window into VOA Amharic reporting,
allowing a better ability to evaluate allegations of bias.
Given that a strong perception of actual bias exists, and
that at least some imbalance may be demonstrable, Post
suggests an impartial review of VOA Amharic reporting over
the past six months. This suggestion is not made with the
intent of pointing fingers, but to better enable Post to
respond appropriately to the VOA’s vehement detractors in
Ethiopia and to ensure that VOA lives up to its reputation
for fair and balanced reporting.
[Ambassador Vicky] HUDDLESTON
==========================
2005-11-22 13:53
SUBJECT: ETHIOPIA: VOA ON THE HOT SEAT
REF: ADDIS ABABA 3852
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED; PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY.
¶1. (U) SUMMARY: A November 15 meeting with State Minister
of Foreign Affairs Tekeda Alemu provided the opportunity for
the Charge to discuss the Government of Ethiopia’s concerns
regarding reporting by the VOA’s Amharic Service, as
well as larger issues of GOE press outreach and its
relationship with the private media (other topics discussed
reported SEPTEL). The State Minister’s views on both issues
do not indicate that quick fixes are likely on either. END
SUMMARY.
¶2. (SBU) During a meeting called by State Minister Tekeda,
the Charge raised GOE concerns about VOA Amharic service
reporting; the State Minister hat send two letters on the
subject within the past two weeks (the first reported
REFTEL). The Charge said that the Embassy takes charges of
biased reporting by the VOA seriously; she added that she
also remains concerned that perceptions of bias may have
spilled over into outright harassment of local VOA
stringers, noting the October 26 attack on one.
¶3. (SBU) The State Minister responded that he knows that
freedom of speech and of the press make GOE complaints on
the subject “a delicate matter,” and that he hoped his
letters did not convey a message not intended, namely that
the USG should in some way control or manage VOA reporting.
Instead, he said, they were intended to alert the Charge
that the VOA is “not working as a news outfit,” but was
instead “carrying out political activities intended to
damage the EPRDF and the Ethiopian people with no sense of
embarrassment or proportion.” He characterized VOA Amharic
reporting as deeply imbalanced, saying that it intentionally
sought out interlocutors who would comment negatively on the
GOE; as an example, Tekeda cited recent stories that
included accounts by weeping family members of those killed
and detained in recent unrest. He said that only an Amharic
speaker could understand how deeply embedded the VOA’s
partisanship was in the Amharic language.
¶4. (SBU) The Charge answered that she looked on his
letters as a call for action; she said that she had already
sent a request (REFTEL) seeking an impartial review of VOA
Amharic reporting. She added that the Embassy had already
reviewed in detail the instance of perceived bias included
in the State Minister’s first letter, and noted that the
English translation provided by the Ministry did not fully
reflect the Amharic used in the broadcast, which did (unlike
the Ministry translation) source a call for security forces
to disobey orders to an opposition leader interviewed, and
so was not a direct call from the VOA for such action.
¶5. (SBU) The Charge said that the increasing controversy
over VOA Amharic reporting had indicated to her two
problems, one the GOE’s and one the USG’s. The GOE’s
problem, she said, was that internal efforts to control the
flow of information paradoxically magnify the importance of
VOA Amharic reporting; the lack of non-state media,
especially electronic media, guarantee the VOA an audience.
That so much VOA reporting focuses on opposition activities
is a result not only of VOA having good sources among
opposition leaders, but also GOE inaccessibility. The GOE,
she said, does not do well in getting its side of the story
out, making the appearance of one-sided reporting to some
extent inevitable. Perhaps, she posited, the GOE needs a
spokesperson who could persuasively and proactively present
its policy and actions.
¶6. (SBU) The USG problem, the Charge said, is that there
may in fact be a balance issue, but that, if so, much of it
comes from lack of access and the resulting inability to
report the GOE side. She urged the State Minister to
“really think about how you get your message out.”
¶7. (SBU) The Minister said he did not “disagree that the
Government and the ruling party do not do well,” but
attributed it, not to an apparent inability to present its
case, but to letting private papers “have their way for 14
years,” and not more actively moving forward on longstanding
plans for a state-run press council and journalistic code of
conduct. As a result, he said, “they have been free to
wreak havoc.” In regard to the VOA, he lamented that the
Amharic service “could have played an important role” in
inspiring Ethiopians, but was instead “part of the very ugly
scene in Addis Ababa.”
¶8. (SBU) The State Minister lamented that “a few people”
in the Diaspora have been playing a “zealous,” negative role
“with no inhibition.” He said that this was not isolated to
the U.S., and cited examples in South Africa of opposition
supporters there intimidating pro-government Ethiopians and
Ethiopian-owned businesses. Speaking of oppositionist
members of the U.S. Diaspora, he said, “they provoked us,”
adding that their support empowered the hardest-line
elements among the opposition and that “the Hailu [Shawel]
types are beyond the pale.” He praised USG statements on
Ethiopia, but said he felt recent ones “have been watered
down a little,” and added that he hoped that, despite
pressure from within the U.S., they would not become less
balanced.
¶9. (SBU) COMMENT: The question of VOA Amharic reporting,
along with the flow of information to and within Ethiopia
more generally, is clearly much on the minds of those in
official circles here. The GOE remains focused on issues of
control and restraint, however, rather than positive
engagement and outreach. END COMMENT.
In an article titled “The Question of Unity: Do Words Matter?,” Maimire Mennasemay exposed the poison wrapped in the TPLF’s {www:catchphrase} “unity in diversity.” His insightful analysis reveals that the slogan is “diversity-centric,” in that it gives primacy to ethnic identities and conceives of unity as an {www:agglomeration} of sovereign and static ethnic groups. As an assemblage of diverse entities, unity is less the overcoming of fragmentation than the political consecration of its artificiality.
Worse yet, so conceived, unity becomes “inherently inimical to democracy.” Because it freezes divisions, it promotes the politics of divide-and-rule that is so characteristic of dictatorial regimes. It also hampers the development of universal norms, by which people assert their common interests, beyond ethnic particularisms, and come together, thereby perceiving unity as the realization of their common aspirations. With an acuminous grasp, Maimire shows how the imperial regime, the Derg, and the EPRDF have used different strategies to achieve a similar goal, namely, the coagulation of ethnicity, either through rejection or consolidation, so as “to implement their divide-and-exploit policies.” After all, whether ethnicity is accepted or rejected, in both cases it is set against unity.
Instead of “unity in diversity,” Maimire proposes the formula “diversity in unity,” which, he says, is “unity-centric” and, as such, friendly to democratic developments. Indeed, the suggested formulation no longer seeks the petrification of ethnic identities; rather, it promotes unity through the development of norms transcending particularisms. Not only does it thus give primacy to unity, but it also turns unity into the framework of diversity. It does not obtain an artificial gathering by reducing unity to a mere sum of diverse entities; on the contrary, it lays out a diversified, rainbow-like unity, as opposed to conglomerate unity. In the rainbow-like unity, the parts belong to the same unity and are in solidarity with one another, unlike the conglomerate unity, which is composed of heterogeneous entities that remain distinct as oil and water.
While conglomerate unity is perfectly propitious to a divide-and-rule policy, given that a hegemonic center becomes necessary to keep together the heterogeneous entities, the spectral quality of a diversified unity accentuates fellowship and solidarity, and so replaces divisive politics with the pursuit of consensus. In such a union, a hegemonic force becomes superfluous, since diversity becomes a component, an expression of unity rather than an entity in an artificial assemblage. Where people are united by common interests and traits, they resent divisive and dictatorial rule.
My own contribution suggests that Maimire’s analysis contains more than a prescription, an ought-to-be; it is also quite reflective of modern Ethiopian history. The beginning was unity rather than diversity. The ethnic problem of Ethiopia presupposes the territorial unity achieved by Menelik’s expansion and the consolidation of the Ethiopian state under Haile Selassie. Prior to the expansion and integration into the Ethiopian empire, most southern peoples lived under tribal organizations that significantly fell short of being nations, still less nation-states. By contrast, the northern part of modern Ethiopia had developed the sense of being a nation through a long history of unity under an organized state.
When the north conquered and integrated the south, a territorial unity was achieved, but which was fraught with deep contradictions, since it immediately took a hegemonic form. In addition to marginalizing the representatives of the southern peoples, the conquerors appropriated their land and implemented a policy of assimilation that was insensitive to their cultural legacy. And as the competition for scarce resources intensified with the process of modernization, the educated elites of the southern peoples and those of Tigray and Eritrea responded to the hegemony of Amhara ruling elite by increasingly rejecting unity and construing themselves as representatives of oppressed or “colonized” nations. Clearly, the historical reality does not show a movement from diversity to unity; rather, it displays the process of diversity emerging from unity as a result of hegemonic practices. Diversity is thus a posterior creation, not an initial point of departure, as suggested by the expression “unity in diversity.”
Unlike “unity in diversity,” which is an attempt to rewrite history by changing an outcome into a beginning, “diversity in unity” acknowledges the movement toward diversity. By conceptualizing diversity as the product of elite conflicts caused by hegemonic practices, it naturally sees it as bifurcation or divergence, which can become the basis of democratic unity, provided that it is not solidified by detrimental ideologies, notably by ethnonationalist beliefs. Ethiopia would thus evolve from territorial unity to democratic unity via bifurcation or internal differentiation. Differentiation is a mediation in the process of transition from imposed unity to diversified unity.
It is important that Ethiopian forces opposing ethnonationalist ideologies adopt the principle of “diversity in unity.” In so doing, they emphasize unity while integrating diversity in such a way that it is no longer antithetical to unity. Better still, by converting diversity into a construct triggered by elite conflicts, they counter its hypostatization, whose consequence is that diversity is approached as a political problem liable of a democratic solution, and not as a primordial attribute that is refractory to a sub-unit status. To say that diversity grew out of unity maintains the integrity of the whole, whereas the opposite, that is, the generation of unity from initial dispersion at best obtains a collection, which certainly does not amount to a nation.
Sometimes people identify with the tyrant as an extension of their family or ethnic networking. They may feel loyalty to the regime or system similar to the loyalty that they feel to their favorite soccer club. This is particularly true if they have shared the experience of some dramatic historical events, such as a struggle for independence or a series of wars.. [read more]
On December 21, 1987, Time Magazine on its cover page featured a downcast and crestfallen young Ethiopian mother as a symbol of famine victims in that country. Time asked two timeless questions: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?”
In its analysis, Time wrote something that should strikes us all as déjà vu today.
Three years ago [1984], a famine began to strike Ethiopia with apocalyptic force. Westerners watched in horror as the images of death filled their TV screens: the rows of fly-haunted corpses, the skeletal orphans crouched in pain… Today Ethiopia is in the midst of another drought… Ethiopia, which has earned the unhappy honor of being rated the globe’s poorest country by the World Bank (average annual per capita income: + $110; infant mortality rate: 16.8%), is on the brink of disaster again. At least 6 million of its 46 million people face starvation, and only a relief effort on the scale of the one launched three years ago will save them… As the cry [for aid] goes out once more for food and money, the sympathetic cannot be faulted for wondering why this is happening all over again. Is the latest famine wholly the result of cruel nature, or are other, man-made forces at work that worsen the catastrophe?…
In 2011, Ethiopia is the second poorest country in the world despite fanciful claims of 15 a percent annual economic growth and fantasies of building the largest hydroelectric dams in all of Africa by dictator Meles Zenawi. According to official statements of the Zenawi regime, 4.5 million of the estimated 90 million Ethiopians need 380 metric tons of food at a cost of USD$400 million. Jason Frasier, mission director of USAID in Ethiopia recently cautioned that Zenawi’s regime “may be underestimating the country’s needs in its drought crisis, even as the government announced that 4.5 million Ethiopians need food aid, 40 percent more than last year. We are concerned that we are underestimating the situation, especially in the southern provinces.” We are back to the future in 1984!
On August 17, 2011, Wolfgang Fengler, a lead economist for the World Bank, weighed in with a definitive answer to Time’s question: “The [famine] crisis is man made. Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” In other words, it is bad governance that is at the core of the famine problem in Ethiopia, not drought. This is a rare and refreshing departure from the all-too-common bureaucratic mumbo jumbo about the causes of famine often spouted by international aid agencies and multilateral organizations.
TEN REASONS WHY ETHIOPIANS ARE STARVING AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…
Reason #1: Famine is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia; it is a powerful political and military weapon.
There is a long and ignoble history of political and military weaponization of famine in Ethiopia. In the mid-1980s, the military junta government of Mengistu Hailemariam used famine to punish civilian populations perceived to support rebels in the northern part of the country. The junta prevented delivery of food aid in rebel-held areas (as did the rebels themselves) and implemented a cruel policy of forced migration of civilians in an effort to drain recruits and deny support to the rebels. Zenawi’s regime pursued the same policy to defeat alleged rebels in the Ogaden region and has further used humanitarian aid to consolidate power and starve out his opposition as documented recently in a BIA/BIJ report. Mao Zedong taught that “Guerrillas are like fish, and the people are the water in which fish swim.” Both Zenawi and Megistu understood that by militarily and politically weaponizing famine, they can poison and drain the water in the lake. No water! No fish! No problem!
Reason # 2: Famine is a recurrent fact in Ethiopia because that country has been in an endless cycle of dictatorship for decades.
Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen argues that “there has never been a famine in a functioning multi-party democracy.” In a competitive political process with a functioning free press, there is a much higher degree of political accountability. No freely elected government could afford to ignore famine or abstain from doing all it can to prevent it. Opposition politicians will make famine a major political issue to win elections. A free press will mobilize public opinion to hold those in power accountable for letting “famine occur on their watch.” In Ethiopia, opposition political parties are non-existent. In 2005, Zenawi jailed the entire leadership of the opposition for nearly two years. He even jailed the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, Birtukan Midekssa, and with sadistic indifference declared, “there will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” No opposition, no multiparty democracy, no free press, no accountability equals recurrent famines.
Reason # 3: Famine in Ethiopia is an annual crisis because dictators do not give a damn if the people die one by one or by the millions.
The current rulers of Ethiopia, like their junta predecessor, continue to derive spiritual guidance from their patron saints: Stalin and Mao (Chinese financial support today is one of the cornerstones of Zenawi’s regime). Stalin was blasé and arrogantly dismissive of the Ukraine famine of the early 1930s. He said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” In 1959 during China’s Great Famine, Mao was equally matter-of-fact: “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” Mengistu said there was no famine when millions of Ethiopians dropped like flies from starvation in 1984-85. But Zenawi is more cunning and pretty slick when it comes to public relations. He said there are emergencies, but no famines. “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch – emergencies, but no famines.”
Reason #4. Famine is a structural part of the Ethiopian economy because the “government” owns all the land.
It is said of the golden rule that he who controls the gold makes the rules. The same can be said of land in Ethiopia. Those who own the land makes the rules for those who till the land. Article 40 (1) of the Ethiopian Constitution provides that “the right to ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the State and in the peoples of Ethiopia.” For all intents and purposes, that means the ruling regime and its supporters own the land. The regime controls who gets what plot of urban or farm land. The regime sells, leases or otherwise traffics in land without any accountability. Recently, the regime sold a large chunk of the country’s most fertile land to Indian companies for pennies: “For £150 a week (USD$245), you can lease more than 2,500 square kilometres of virgin, fertile [Ethiopian] land – an area the size of Dorset, England – for 50 years, plus generous tax breaks.” The bottom line is that those who own the land are more interested in meeting the needs of other people in other places than the Ethiopian people. Zenawi has condemned Ethiopian developers who were transferring their leaseholds in urban land in Addis Ababa as “land grabbers” and “speculators” who should be “locked up”. The old feudal landlords are today replaced by new landlords in designer suits.
Reason # 5: Famine persists in Ethiopia because massive human rights abuses persist.
The Zenawi regime is well-known for trashing the human and constitutional rights of Ethiopian citizens. Perhaps unknown to many is the regime’s flagrant violation of its affirmative legal duty to provide a “standard of living adequate for the health and well-being… including food for its citizens.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights 25(1); The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Article 11(2) [“fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger”]; Ethiopian Constitution, Article 90 of the Constitution, [“provide all Ethiopians with access to public health and education, clean water, housing, food and social insurance”]. Weaponizing hunger to decimate one’s opposition is a crime against humanity. But hunger is the new weapon of choice in human rights violations in Ethiopia. Those who oppose the regime are not only denied humanitarian food and relief aid, they are also victimized through a system of evictions, denial of land or reduction in plot size as well as denial of access to loans, fertilizers, seeds, etc. In the case of the people of Gambella, entire communities are forced off the land to make way for Indian investors in violation of conventions that protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Zenawi’s regime believes that the most effective way of crushing the hearts and minds of the people is by keeping their stomachs empty.
Reason #6: Famine persists in Ethiopia because Zenawi has succeeded in keeping the famine hidden.
Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 pretended there was no famine until the documentary “the Hidden Famine” by Jonathan Dimbleby was aired to a shocked and angry Ethiopian public. Former junta leader Mengistu was arrogantly dismissive during the 1984-85 famine. He asked, “What famine?” Zenawi is far more cunning. His solution is to clampdown on the press and shut the country down to all foreign journalists and media representatives. If any foreign journalists should somehow manage to get through, jail them. That is exactly what he did recently to two Swedish journalists, photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye, who were arrested in the Ogaden region where the regime has committed massive human rights violations for years. Regime representative Dina Mufti explained that the two journalists “will be tried according to the national law … for the terrorist activities they were planning to undertake.” Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of Awramba Times (a struggling weekly paper) and one of the few female journalists in the country, Reyot Alemu of Feteh (another struggling weekly paper) newspapers were recently jailed on bogus charges that they were “organizing a terrorist network.” Since there is no independent press in the country and those trying to offer an alternative voice are subject to intimidation, arrest and detention, the famine remains hidden not unlike the days of Emperor Haile Selassie.
Reason #7: Famine persist in Ethiopia because there is a “conspiracy of silence” by Western aid agencies and timid NGOs.
Zenawi has made it clear that anyone who disputes his claim of 15 percent annual economic growth and rosy picture of the country will be thrown out of the country, vilified or not allowed to operate. Recently, when Ken Ohashi, the World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia said Zenawi’s economic plan (“Growth and Transformation Plan”) is unsustainable, Zenawi unleashed his legendary vitriol on him: “The World Bank [country] director is used to having other developing nations simply listen to his orders and is not used to nations refusing implement policy based on their wishes. He left here after we refused to let him tell us what to do and wrote this article to get back at us.” In other words, attack the man’s integrity savagely to divert attention from the man’s message.
But all NGOs and international aid agencies know never to use the “F” word, unless of course they use it to deny there is no famine. That is precisely what USAID Deputy Administrator Gregory Gottlieb did last week on a VOA broadcast. He said, “There is no famine in Ethiopia.” The strange thing is that it does not seem Gottlieb had spoken about the “situation” to Jason Fraser, mission director of USAID in Ethiopia, before making his glib declaration. Fraser said, “We are concerned that we are underestimating the situation, especially in the southern provinces [in Ethiopia].” So the conspiracy of silence goes on to keep the famine hidden by using euphemisms. It is not FAMINE, it is the “situation”, severe malnutrition, food insecurity, food crisis [when Zenawi recently visited China, Premier Wen Jiabao called the famine “crisis”], green drought and so on. The “crisis” is not the result of lack of preventive or long-range planning, official incompetence, corruption, criminal negligence, etc., but the effect of “erratic rains damaged or delayed crops, deforestation overgrazing” and other ecological, environmental, and climatic disasters.
The international poverty mongers are so slick that they have even invented a “scientific” classification system for famine: “Acute Food Insecurity, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe.” They want us to believe that famine is some sort of neatly-staged transitional process. For a mother and child who have not eaten for days or scrimp on ten kilograms of grain a month, the famine taxanomy is meaningless. It would be interesting to hear what famine victims would say when they are told that they will not be in a famine state until they drop dead! The fact of the matter is that a famine by any other name is still famine and just as deadly!
On the other hand, the international agencies and NGOs have a manifest conflcit of interest because by revealing the truth aboout the famine, they are likely to run the risk of a severe tongue-lashing (See Ohashi above), exoposure that their programs are a waste, or if an NGO, deceritifcation and expedited removal from the country. They would rather turn a blind eye and remain silent than use the “F” word.
Reason # 8: Famine persist in Ethiopia because the regime in power for 20 years has failed to devise and implement an effective family planning policy.
In 1993, Zenawi’s “Transitional Government of Ethiopia” in its “National Population Policy of Ethiopia” (NPPE) declared that “its major goal [was] the harmonization of the rate of population growth and the capacity of the country for the development and rational utilization of natural resources thereby creating conditions conductive to the improvement of the level of welfare of the population.” It aimed to reduce “total fertility rate of 7.7 children per woman to approximately 4.0 by the year 2015 by mounting an effective country wide population information and education programme, expanding clinical and community based contraceptive distribution services, raising the minimum age at marriage for girls and removal of unnecessary restrictions pertaining to the advertisement, propagation and popularization of diverse conception control methods.” In 1993 Ethiopia’s population was estimated at 53 million. In 2011, the population is estimated at 91 million. The numbers speak for themselves!
Reason # 9: Famine in Ethiopia is good business.
There are many who profit from economic emergences created by famines. There is much money to be made from trafficking in famine relief aid. According to FAO’s Global Food Monitor for August 2011, in Ethiopia and other Horn countries “prices of cereals have reached record levels… well above their levels a year earlier, substantially reducing access to food by large numbers of population and aggravating the food insecurity in the subregion.” Who benefits from the high prices? Regime-allied middlemen buy massive amounts of grains from farmers at low prices (by offering what appears to be a generous price at the time) and eliminate legitimate small businesses that deal in grain. The same middlemen have an absolute monopoly on the acquisition, sale and distribution of agricultural commodities, and it is not hard to imagine how profitable famines could be. It makes perfect economic sense from the perspective of famine profiteering to place low policy priority on famine prevention and control. It’s the old supply and demand curve. High demand for food and less supply and a chokehold monopoly on the market, and complete control on the distribution of international food aid equals to “mo’ money, mo’ money, and mo’ money” for those in power. Grotesque as it may sound, famine is good for business.
Reason # 10: It is true “a hungry man/woman is an angry man/woman.” Is it not?
The great Bob Marley sang:
Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
…
Cost of livin’ gets so high,
Rich and poor they start to cry:
Now the weak must get strong;
…
Now the weak must get strong.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
(AP, Reuters) — A convoy of rebels entered a western neighborhood of the city firing their weapons into the air, a witness said. Sky television said some fighters were only 8 km (five miles) from the center and were being welcomed by civilians pouring into the streets.
Euphoric Libyan rebels raced into the capital Tripoli on Sunday and moved close to center with little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi’s defenders melted away. Opposition leaders said Gadhafi’s son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, has been arrested.
Associated Press reporters with the rebels said the fighters moved easily from the western outskirts into the regime stronghold in a dramatic turning of the tides in the 6-month-old Libyan civil war.
“They will enter Green Square tonight, God willing,” said Mohammed al-Zawi, a 30-year-old rebel who entered Tripoli. Green Square has been the site of night rallies by Gadhafi supporters throughout the uprising.
Gadhafi’s rule of more than 40 years appeared to be rapidly crumbling.
Earlier in the day, the rebels overran a major military base defending the capital, carted away truckloads of weapons and raced to Tripoli with virtually no resistance.
Gadhafi acknowledged that the opposition forces were moving into Tripoli. In an audio message broadcast on Libyan state television after the rebels entered the capital, he warned the Tripoli would be turned into another Baghdad.
“How come you allow Tripoli the capital, to be under occupation once again?” he said. “The traitors are paving the way for the occupation forces to be deployed in Tripoli.”
He called on his supporters to march in the streets of the capital and “purify it” from “the rats.”
The rebels’ surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall, they had advanced more than 20 miles to Tripoli.
Thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with rebel fighters shooting in the air. Some of the fighters were hoarse, shouting: “We are coming for you, frizz-head,” a mocking nickname for Gadhafi. In villages along the way that fell to the rebels one after another, mosque loudspeakers blared “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.”
“We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom,” said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire erupted nearby.
As town after town fell and Gadhafi forces disappeared, the mood turned euphoric. Some shouted: “We are getting to Tripoli tonight.” Others were shooting in the air, honking horns and yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
Once they reached Tripoli, the rebels took control of one neighborhood, Ghot Shaal, on the western edge of the city. They set up checkpoints as a convoy of more than 10 trucks rolled in.
The rebels moved on to the neighborhood of Girgash, about a mile and a half from Green Square. They said they came under fire from a sniper on a rooftop in the neighborhood.
Sidiq al-Kibir, the rebel leadership council’s representative for the capital Tripoli, confirmed the arrest of Seif al-Islam to the AP but did not give any further details.
Inside Tripoli, widespread clashes erupted for a second day between rebel “sleeper cells” and Gadhafi loyalists. Rebels fighter who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighborhoods.
The day’s first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Gadhafi regime – the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Gadhafi’s son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance. They were 16 miles from the big prize, Tripoli.
Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Gadhafi.
Inside, they cracked open wooden crates labeled “Libyan Armed Forces” and loaded their trucks with huge quantities of munitions. One of the rebels carried off a tube of grenades, while another carted off two mortars.
“This is the wealth of the Libyan people that he was using against us,” said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. “Now we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against the Libyan people.”
One group started up a tank, drove it out of the gate, crushing the median of the main highway and driving off toward Tripoli. Rebels celebrated the capture with deafening amounts of celebratory gunfire, filling the air with smoke.
Across the street, rebels raided a huge warehouse, making off with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and large-caliber ammunition. The warehouse had once been using to storage packaged foods, and in the back, cans of beans were still stacked toward the ceiling.
They freed several hundred prisoners from a regime lockup. The fighters and the prisoners – many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings – embraced and wept with joy.
The prisoners had been held in the walled compound and when the rebels rushed in, they freed more than 300 of them.
“We were sitting in our cells when all of a sudden we heard lots of gunfire and people yelling ‘Allahu Akbar.’ We didn’t know what was happening, and then we saw rebels running in and saying ‘We’re on your side.’ And they let us out,” said 23-year-old Majid al-Hodeiri from Zawiya. He said he was captured four months ago by Gadhafi’s forces and taken to base. He said he was beaten and tortured while under detention.
Many of the prisoners looked disoriented as they stopped at a gathering place for fighters several miles away from the base. Some had signs of severe beatings. Others were dressed in tattered T-shirts or barefoot. Rebels fighters and prisoners embraced.
From the military base, the convoy sped toward the capital.
Mahmoud al-Ghwei, 20 and unarmed, said he had just came along with a friend for the ride .
“It’s a great feeling. For all these years, we wanted freedom and Gadhafi kept it from us. Now we’re going to get rid of Gadhafi and get our freedom,” he said.
At nightfall, the fighters reached Janzour, a Tripoli suburb. Along the way, they were greeted by civilians lining the streets and waving rebel flags. One man grabbed a rebel flag that had been draped over the hood of a slow-moving car and kissed it, overcome with emotion.
“We are not going back,” said Issam Wallani, another rebel. “God willing, this evening we will enter Tripoli.”
The uprising against Gadhafi broke out in mid-February, and anti-regime protests quickly spread across the vast desert nation with only 6 million people. A brutal regime crackdown quickly transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized Libya’s east, setting up an internationally recognized transitional government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.
Gadhafi clung to the remaining territory, and his forces failed to subdue the rebellion in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, and in the Nafusa mountains. Since the start of August, thousands of rebel fighters, including many who fled Gadhafi-held cities, joined an offensive launched from the mountains toward the coast.
The fighters who had set out from the mountains three weeks ago rushed toward Tripoli on Sunday, start out at dawn from a village just east of the coastal city of Zawiya. Only a day earlier had the rebels claimed full control of Zawiya, an anti-regime stronghold with 200,000 people and Libya’s last functioning oil refinery.
Rebels said Saturday that they had launched their first attack on Tripoli in coordination with NATO and gunbattles and mortar rounds rocked the city. NATO aircraft also made heavier than usual bombing runs after nightfall, with loud explosions booming across the city.
On Sunday, more heavy machine gun fire and explosions rang out across the capital with more clashes and protests.
Government minders in a hotel where foreign journalists have been staying in Tripoli armed themselves on Sunday in anticipation of a rebel take over. The hotel manager said he had received calls from angry rebels threatening to charge the hotel to capture the government’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim.
Heavy gun fire was heard in the neighborhood around the Rixos hotel, and smoke was seen rising from a close by building.
“We are scared and staying in our houses, but the younger boys are going out to protect our homes,” said a woman who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from the pro-rebel Tripoli neighborhood of Bin Ashour. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. She said a neighbor’s son was shot dead on Saturday night by Gadhafi troops as he tried to protect his street with a group of rebel youth.
Nuri al-Zawi, another resident of Bin Ashour, told the AP by phone that the rebels were using light arms to protect their streets, and in some cases were using only their bodies to fend off the Gadhafi troops riding in pickup trucks.
“We are used to this situation now. We are a city that is cut off from the world now,” he said.
The residents reported clashes in neighborhoods all over Tripoli as well as the city’s Mitiga military airport. They said they heard loud explosions and exchanges in of gunfire in the Fashloum, Tajoura and Bin Ashour neighborhoods.
Residents and opposition fighters also reported large anti-regime protests in those same neighborhoods. In some of them, thousands braved the bullets of snipers perched atop high buildings.
Laub and Hubbard reported from Janzour, Libya. Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Cairo contributed to this report.
