Ethiopia’s mother of corruption Azeb Mesfin has found her match in Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwe’s dictator. The similarities between these two witches is amazing. Like Grace, Azeb is forming business partnerships left and right. Like Grace, Azeb is a whore. Read the article below about Grace Mugabe and judge for yourself.
When President Robert Mugabe’s younger sister, Sabina, died in Harare after a short illness, pictures showed the 86-year-old president looking devastated at her funeral.
According to one of Mugabe’s most trusted bodyguards who was present at the time, Sabina Mugabe, 75, warned her brother before she died that he was being betrayed by two of the most important people in his personal and political life: his wife and his personal banker, a pivotal member of his regime.
Sabina told the president that Grace and Gideon Gono, the powerful head of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Mugabe’s confidant, were secret lovers.
Grace, 41 years Mugabe’s junior, has taken lovers before. One lover, Peter Pamire, died in a mysterious car accident. James Makamba, one of Zimbabwe’s richest businessmen and a top-ranking Zanu-PF official, enjoyed her favours but their affair ended in tears, too, when a furious and sexually jealous Mugabe ran him out of town in fear of his life.
But never before has Grace been romantically involved with a politician in Mugabe’s inner circle. And never before has a man so close to the president risked allowing it to happen.
The dangers from discovery are high. Zimbabwe state intelligence officials made it known that Mugabe’s detection of the affair had already led to the murder of the bodyguard present at Sabina’s bedside and more trouble would almost certainly follow.
“Once he hears something like that, I think someone will go and meet God,” said one intelligence official.
A pillar of the regime who Mugabe personally appointed in 2003 to head the central bank, Gono was a person he absolutely trusted ; furthermore, he was a family friend. The two have known each other since 1995 when Mugabe appointed Gono, then chief executive of a major Harare commercial bank, to be his personal banker.
“Mugabe trusted Gono. He even thought our boss was taking care of the first lady keeping a protective eye on her so that she could not again be adulterous,” said one senior official in Gono’s office who became aware of their secret affair, and who spoke out about it for the first time last month, on condition of anonymity.
Another in Gono’s entourage said Gono and Grace, who are business partners in several enterprises in Zimbabwe and South Africa, had been planning a life together after Mugabe’s death.
Mugabe’s marriage to Grace is itself founded on an adulterous relationship which shocked many Zimbabweans at the time. Grace was working as a junior secretary in the typing pool in Mugabe’s office and married to an air force officer when the two began having an affair. They had two children while Mugabe’s first wife, Sally – who was universally popular – battled a terminal kidney disease. After her death in 1996, Mugabe wed Grace, who is widely loathed and notorious for her lavish shopping sprees.
The Gono source said Grace and Gono first became romantically involved in 2005 and had seen each other regularly since. When they could not find an excuse to meet in South Africa or further abroad, they met at Gushungu Dairy Estate, Grace’s 1000ha farm about an hour from Harare.
They met twice, sometimes three times, a month.
They also met at the Harare home of a woman friend and business associate of Grace who is a Zanu-PF stalwart. They exchanged e-mails, which one official privy to them described as “explicit”.
He said Mugabe had always naively accepted as true Grace’s story that she and Gono are related. They are not, although both come from the town of Chivhu, 200km south of Harare.
The enormity of Gono’s betrayal would have come as a devastating emotional shock to Mugabe when Sabina revealed it to him.
Mugabe went to visit his sister between 6pm and 7pm on July 26 in the intensive care ward at the Avenues Clinic in Harare. As he sat on her bed with senior police commissioner Cain Chademana, his most trusted bodyguard, at his side, she told him the truth.
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) officials said Chademana told them of the discussion afterwards and said that the president left the meeting devastated.
“At first, Mugabe did not want to believe it was true, but Sabina told him to ask his men about the affair and make up his own mind,” said the officials, quoting what Chademana had told them.
“It was maddening because Mugabe had encouraged their friendship and sometimes asked Grace to see Gono to discuss mutual business matters.”
In early August, a few days after Sabina’s funeral, Mugabe and Grace left together for China on an official visit.
Mugabe took his sister’s advice when he returned to Harare later in August, the state intelligence officials said .
He summoned his bodyguard, Chademana, to tell him exactly what had been going on. Like others in the state security services close to the Mugabes, Chademana had had good reason to believe Grace and Gono were having an affair even before Sabina revealed it in his presence, but had thought it wisest to keep quiet about it.
When Mugabe summoned him in August, “Chademana admitted that he knew something was going on which he had not said before”, said the state security officials.
“Mugabe is said to have gone very silent.”
It was a fatal admission. A matter of days later, at the end of August, Chademana mysteriously died. State security officials handed over his body to his son, Welcome, for burial. No autopsy was performed. The dead police officer was a decorated veteran of Zimbabwe’s liberation war in the 1970s. He had served as Mugabe’s aide de camp for many years and officials in the president’s office let it be known that Mugabe was deeply shocked.
“It will be difficult for us to come to terms with this sad reality,” said Albert Ngulube, the department’s assistant director in a speech at Chademana’s funeral.
“We are not a murderous organisation but peace-loving Zimbabweans who are determined to protect our country.”
His remarks stopped further speculation of foul play arising from the bodyguard’s sudden demise.
But CIO sources last week revealed that Chademana was poisoned under Mugabe’s instructions by Mugabe’s intelligence men, allegedly employing an undetectable poison. The instructions were carried out after Mugabe had briefed Happyton Bonyongwe, the director general of the CIO.
It was a desperate measure to keep Grace’s affair with Gono from leaking out and making a mockery of the ageing president.
“Mugabe wanted it hushed up at all costs,” said a security official. “Gono is his personal banker, knows Mugabe’s financial secrets and is trusted. And there he is betraying the old man by having an affair with his wife.
“It would be too humiliating and could not be allowed to stand. In addition, Mugabe concluded that Chademana was the source of humiliating leaks about the president’s deteriorating health.”
Mugabe hopes the embarrassing secret of his wife’s infidelity with one of his right-hand men is safely buried with the body of the hapless Chademana in the Warren Hills cemetery outside Harare.
The reserve bank governor’s betrayal presents Mugabe with a dilemma. Throughout most of the last decade of political turmoil and economic meltdown Gono was central to Mugabe’s survival in power.
As the controller of the state coffers, he wielded enormous influence and patronage essentially saving Mugabe’s presidency by finding ways to keep the money flowing when the value of the Zimbabwe dollar had collapsed through hyperinflation.
By dipping into the coffers to fund all Zanu-PF projects, seeing the army generals and the security services were paid and bankrolling the party’s 2008 terror campaign to get Mugabe re-elected, Gono made himself indispensable.
After the reaching of a power-sharing agreement last year when Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai joined a coalition with Mugabe, Gono lost some of his power. But he still remains vitally important to Mugabe and the key figures in his regime and cannot be easily got rid of.
As Mugabe’s personal banker Gono, 50, manages the president’s vast family fortune looted from the country which Mugabe and Grace have stashed away in an opaque network of overseas bank accounts, business ventures and properties, many in the Far East. He also looks after the financial interests of General Constantine Chiwenga, the armed forces chief and others who surround Mugabe at the top and have enriched themselves through their positions.
A measure of Gono’s importance is that Mugabe unilaterally reappointed him to his post last year against considerable opposition from Tsvangirai and, clearly feeling his departure would be highly damaging, he has ever since resisted all demands to dismiss him.
Meanwhile, it looks as if Chademana’s killing could backfire. There are rumblings of discontent within the state intelligence agency where officers, already demoralised by low pay and the killing of Chademana, are talking. Last week several came forward with more revelations which showed the depth of Gono’s betrayal.
One who worked in Gono’s office said he first became aware of his boss’s affair with Grace several years ago when he accompanied him to Malaysia on official business.
During the visit Gono, who had been booked into the Sheraton hotel in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, quickly disappeared to the Berjaya Langkawi beach and spa resort on the island of Langkawi to see her.
The source said that he and his colleagues thought nothing of it until they came to settle Gono and Grace’s hotel bill for the stay and found they were paying for a double room.
Asked how he reacted he said: “In our job we never trust anyone. Even those we are working with we don’t trust. We saw and kept quiet. It is very sensitive.”
At the end of last year, he said, the couple had shared a room at the Cape Grace hotel in Cape Town. Another of Mugabe’s right-hand men, the former Air Vice-Marshal Robert Mhlanga – a key figure in the controversial exploitation of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond field which is so rich it could make Zimbabwe the world’s top diamond producer – was also said to be aware of Grace’s affair with Gono but kept silent.
Mhlanga has hosted the couple at his Johannesburg house on several occasions during their so-called business trips to South Africa.
“Ask me for another trip like that!” Grace said to Gono afterwards in one e-mail message seen by the official.
More incriminating claims came from the workers at Gushungu, Grace’s dairy farm, an hour’s drive from Harare.
The couple pass off their frequent visits to the farm as business and make a point of arriving and leaving separately.
“At first I did not think anything was going on between them outside business because each time Gono came he bought money with him for the farmworkers,” said one.
“But later on I started suspecting that something was going on each time we visited the house after they had gone.
“No one was allowed inside while they were there. After they left we went back inside. At once it was clear the bedroom had been used for their meeting even though the first lady’s bodyguards had tidied up. They had remade the bed but we could see the sheets had been used. And we noticed the perfume in the bedroom.”
Asked if it surprised him that Gono and Grace were using the farm for an affair, one worker said: “I am not surprised by it. Some others might be. But those who worked at the farm and particularly those who worked in the house will not be astonished.
“It was only going to be a matter of time before someone said it for us. We could not say it ourselves because of fear.”
What exactly is a doctrine is a good question. It is a formal way leaders lay down their beliefs, principles, and/or vision so that their citizens will have some clue of where they are taking the country. Apparently Sarah Palin was not aware of the concept, when she sat down with a reporter before the 2008 elections. When asked regarding her understanding of the ‘Bush Doctrine’, the barracuda from Wasilla, drew blank. Her simple innocent answer was ‘in what respect Charlie?’
I do not want you responding ‘in what respect Charlie? when asked about the Meles Doctrine. There is of course a big difference between ‘Ideology’ and ‘Doctrine’. One can say ‘ideology’ and ‘doctrine’ are cousins that can easily be confused by the layman. Marxism is an ideology. Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism are upgrades. Then you have the poor man cheap Apps. that do not rise to the level of ideology, but are thrown in to give petty tyrants a certain air of intellectualism. Juiche in North Korea, Ujama in Tanzania, Green Revolution in Libya etc. are good examples. If you remember Ato Meles came up with ‘revolutionary democracy’ to explain his style, but unfortunately, it did not get traction. It was not definable because it was just empty rhetoric thrown in to explain single ethnic supremacy.
Let us look at some famous ‘Doctrines’ to get a better understanding of the term. I will start with the ‘Monroe Doctrine’. The Monroe Doctrine is a United States policy that was introduced on December 2, 1823, which stated that “further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed, by the United States of America, as acts of aggression requiring US intervention.” The US President was warning the European powers to stay out of this hemisphere.
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry Truman on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere. It was a warning to Stalin to stay put.
Last but not least, we have the ‘Bush Doctrine’. Compared to the other doctrines, the Bush Doctrine was as confused as the person himself. It was left open for others to define it and/or to attribute different meanings to the concept. It went something like ‘the US should depose regimes that represented potential or perceived threat to the security of the US even if that threat was not immediate.’ It was an open-ended policy to justify the use of military power. Those without a few nukes were worried.
The ‘Meles Doctrine’ was officially unveiled during his speech at the ‘World Leaders Forum’ last month. It was supposed to be a moment of great significance that will usher a new path of ‘salvation’ for the developing countries. It was a crowning moment organized by his friends and fans for our ‘Dear leader for life’ to shine in the international scene. Professor Stiglitz referred to it as ‘academic dialogue.’ A lot of work went into it. The speech was written, rewritten, proofread, and deemed Columbia worthy by all top TPLF cadres, at least all those that can read. Thanks to the ‘vocal Diaspora’ it fell on deaf ears. How could one formulate such an earth shaking theory with such incessant jabbering by misguided Diaspora and unworthy audience that filled the auditorium. Pox on all of them.
I will attempt to right that went wrong. I took my time and listened to the speech thanks to you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWoEPK9njWY.
Professor Joseph Stiglitz’s introduction was both revealing and sad. The Professor is a Nobel laureate and a highly respected economist. Why the good professor is ignoring the findings of highly respected international organizations regarding his guests alleged ‘criminal’ acts is not clear. I didn’t know being a Noble laureate entitles one to forgive and befriend dictators that believe in ethnic purity. I was a little surprised when he said ‘I hope he will, I am sure he will say a few words about Ethiopia’s economic progress.’ What else dear professor, when the title of the discussion was ‘The current global environment and its impact on Africa.’ Am I mistaken in thinking that the prime Minster will talk in general and support his argument with first hand experience as it affected good old Ethiopia?
He did not even mention Ethiopia. Not even once. Not even as an example of ‘neo-liberalism’s failure, the subject he is trying to prove passé. I felt insulted. We don’t even fare a footnote in such a forum. Anyway, without further ado, here is Ato Meles in his own words explaining the Meles Doctrine.
“The last three decades which could be described as the decades of the emergence and triumph of neo liberalism in key centers of global power and hence throughout much of the world have been very bad decades for Africa. They have for all intensive purposes been lost decades. At the beginning period Africa faced a huge burdens and associated micro economic imbalances and low rates of economic growth due to weak management of the economy and unfortunate external circumstances, therefore it was forced to seek support from the international financial institutions which had by then become key enforcers of the emerging neo liberal paradigm. Africa was asked to undergo fundamental neo liberal economic reforms and in return for the support it sought from the international financial institutions. These reforms were sold as the ultimate salvation for its problems and were supposed to lead to sustained economic growth and transformation. The reforms could not and did not lead to salvation. On the contrary the limited industrialization of the continent that has taken place since independence was reversed with no economic revival in sight…..Africans were made to see that neo liberalism was the only game in town ….. this insanity of implementing the same failed neo liberal policies and expecting different resulted in another lost decade during the 90’s. While Africa was mired in perpetual economic crisis and associated political malaise punctuated by horrific and senseless violence neo liberal globalization was making tremendous progress…(here he makes a linear analysis of the international economic situation regarding the emergence of China, India and others) …it was towards the end of the roaring 90’s that the pretense of neo liberal reforms finally leading to sustained growth then transformation in Africa was finally and more or less explicitly abandoned. Africa was now more or less explicitly being managed as a lost case, as a continental ghetto on the margins of a fast globalizing world….. Poverty in Africa was seen to be endemic. The new name of the game thus because not the transformation of Africa’s poverty thru neo liberal reform, thru neo liberal or other reform but the management of its chronic poverty. The objective became to alleviate poverty in Africa and limit the damage of its poverty to itself and to the rest of the world. A new generation of externally driven poverty alleviation strategies thus mushroomed over night thru out the continent…..the emergence of new players in the global economy in general and the emergence of China in particular was beginning to significantly impact on Africa’s economic prospect….as the emerging powers were either opposed to the neo liberalism or reluctant to evangelize on its behalf a new and different game came to town ….Africans have for the first time in three decades real alternatives to the orthodoxy, they now have a choice that they have not had for a long time. The fact the Africans now have a choice is in of itself fundamentally liberating above and beyond that Africans now have a real chance to chart a new course of development, one that incorporates best practice elsewhere and is capable to generating fast growth and transformation. “
That is his story and he is sticking to it. It is very important that you watch the youtube video or re-read the excerpt above. I just want to make sure you know that I am not making it up.
What exactly is the neo liberalism that Ato Meles is ranting about? Here is a definition of the term from wikipedia.org
Neoliberalism is a market-driven[1] approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private business sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state.
Thus, what he is theorizing is that the West led by the US and Britain, forced poor Africans to follow this prescription that caused the current distressful situation. Unfortunate for the West, their bankrupt theory has come home to haunt them as seen by the ongoing economic melt down. On the other hand, it had a positive effect on countries like India and China, which brings us to his fantastic conclusion that Africans can now abandon neo liberal voodoo economics and follow the Chinese path that comes without evangelizing about certain bad and nasty African habits such as dictatorship, human right abuse, Kleptocracy, and general evil deeds.
The problem is Ato Meles is not some University professor going on a limb and coming up with fantastic scenarios to prove. No, Ato Meles is a leader of a country. He is, though a Prime Minster by title, the de facto King of Ethiopia. His wish is the law. His theory is the practice of his party. His belief is the national policy. All this is due to the simple fact that he controls the military and public security, both perfect tools of coercion.
Now it would have been better if he has volunteered some factual data to support his argument. After all this is not some Starbucks discussion where anything goes. If we are going to have an ‘academic dialogue’ as promised by the Professor, let us at least make it real and not some ‘Alice in wonderland’ tale.
When he claims that the International financial institutions ‘forced fundamental economic reforms’ on Africans, he should tell us what exactly they forced Ato Meles to do to get financial relief? Let us take the policy of deprivatization as practiced in Ethiopia. I don’t think the IMF prescription was to create a private business (EFFORT) in the name of an ethnic group or sell the illegally expropriated property back to the original owners at inflated price. We are not even going to talk about land. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa where all land belongs to the government and is leased by its people. Americans say ‘there is a sucker born every minute’, they must have been thinking of us.
When he says ‘Africa faced a huge burdens and associated micro economic imbalances and low rates of economic growth due to weak management of the economy and unfortunate external circumstances’, does it sound like shifting responsibility? Let us see Africa was mismanaged by the like of:
· Mengistu Hailemariam of Ethiopia 1974-1991. King of ‘Red Terror’ specialized in using ‘neighborhood committees (kebeles)’ to terrorize and murder over a million citizens. (Body count 1.5 Million lives) He destroyed a generation of future leaders that the country has not yet recovered from.
· Idi Amin of Uganda 1971-1979. Specialized in removal of organs (bodies were found with genitals, eyes, livers, noses missing) and prisoners were forced to bludgeon each other to death with sledgehammers. (Body count about 300,000 lives)
· Jean Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic 1966-1979. Specialized in cannibalism and known for murder of Scholl age children for refusing to wear uniform manufactured in his factory. (Money count $125 Million)
· Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire 1965-1997. Specialized in what is known as ‘Kleptocracy’ where the distinction between state assets and his own was blurred. (Money count $4 Billion)
· Charles Taylor of Liberia 1997-2003. Rain of death on Liberia and its neighbors. Specialized in ‘child solders’ and his personal fortune was greater than Liberia’s GNP. (Body count over 300,000 lives)
Which of these gentlemen is expected to invest time and energy on good governance and nation building? Micro economic imbalance doesn’t sound credible to me. It is more like ‘lack of accountability and megalomania and a dash of grandiosity’ on the part of these mad men in charge.
As for the theory that commodities are bringing more wealth to Africa, it is a tried and tired notion. Africa’s problem is not the lack of money, but it is purely lack of democracy, the rule of law, and accountability. Look at Nigeria where the leaders have stolen over $400 billion from the oil income Yes, that is billion. Guess what they did with it? Deposit it in Swiss, London, or New York banks.
He concludes by saying ‘Africans have for the first time in three decades real alternatives to the orthodoxy, they now have a choice that they have not had for a long time.’ I fail to see what is new here. Didn’t we have a bi-polar world with just two super powers? So what is the big deal about replacing the Russians with the Chinese? Is the expectation that the Chinese for some pure altruism will be better masters than the ferenjis? Shifting between the West and the East did not bring us any gains last time around. They played volleyball with us. Should we give it another try? Didn’t Ato Meles make a choice when he followed the Albanian model? Of course, he grew up and replaced it with the Western model that he is outgrowing today. What is this madness about adapting a new model at this late in the game?
On the other hand, we are told and retold that the Ethiopian economy is growing double digits and is the talk of the continent. Why would anybody quarrel with such an impressive record? Shouldn’t Ethiopia be presented as poster country for the ‘triumph’ of neo liberalism? It is not good to bite the hand that feeds, is it? Or was the growth statistics a hoax? What is curious is that the Chinese we are trying to emulate are moving towards the Western model at the speed of light. Chairman Mao’s body was not even cold when Deng Xiaoping remarked “black cat, white cat, I don’t care what color it is as long as it catches mice”? Today’s China is boasting plenty of billionaires and the Communist Party is working overtime to balance economic growth and political freedom. A very elusive goal if you ask me. What part of that system are we ogling? Don’t tell me we are looking at the Chairman!
The Meles Doctrine should be declared dead on arrival. It needs work. It is not ready for prime time. The PM should go back to the drawing board and give his argument some meat. Declaration might work when one is dealing with underlings but scholarly work requires a little bit more diligence. In my humble opinion the ‘Doctrine’ suffers from tunnel vision. It looks at the world in one dimension. It is afraid to look out side of the box. I agree with his often repeated statement about ‘the insanity of implementing the same failed policy and expecting different result.’ Isn’t presenting the choice between the Western and Chinese model following a failed road.
The ‘creative potential’ of the Ethiopian people is not taken into consideration. Surely a people scattered all over that left their country bare feet to settle in strange lands and manage to send over a billion US dollars in remittances is a formidable force. They are the same people that work hard and invest in Ethiopia that Ato Meles is taking credit for. If it was not for the Diaspora remittance (a cool billion a year) TPLF’s Ethiopia will be one destitute place. We daily think of those that stayed behind and are suffering the brunt of the fire of poverty, ethnic degradation, famine and general apathy. They should be commended for being so calm and peaceful under trying circumstances. Our people are our precious asset. Our only choice is having faith in ourselves and meeting the challenge head on. There is no free lunch in this life. Both the East and the West require a pound of flesh for their handout. The idea of playing one against the other is a zero sum game. It is so yesterday, it is pathetic.
In preparation for a united front, Ethiopian opposition groups need to answer what their common goal is. According to Ethiopian Review editorial adviser Ato Sioum Gebeyehou, the common goal that binds every one in the country is Ethiopiawinet, i.e., to belong to one nation called Ethiopia. The following presentation by Ato Sioum explains that Ethiopia is a model nation of minorities that is a composite fabric of more than 77 ethnic groups. Click on the image below to view the 3-page presentation:
Awash Construction SC, the state-owned construction enterprise, filed a lawsuit against Wegagen Bank, which is owned by a former member of the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) politburo Sebhat Nega, for the recovery of nearly 800,000 birr plus interest for a failed construction project.
The construction company signed a nearly 1.3 million birr contract for the supply and fixing of swimming pool works at the National Bank project in January 2010 with Project Design Innovation Trading.
It also claimed that it has extended 30 percent of the advance payment in two installments after receiving a guarantee of nearly 400,000 birr from Wegagen Bank for a period of four months. The state-owned construction company also claimed that the bank signed up a performance guarantee of nearly 130,000 birr for the same period.
However, Awash Construction S.C. terminated the agreement on August 2010 alleging a breach of contract. Despite repeated notices given to Project Design Innovation Trading, the project was not finalized within 120 days of the signing as agreed in the contract, claims Awash Construction. It also alleged that the bank, which extended its guarantee period for a further period of six months, failed to make the payment after notice was sent to it on September 2010.
Awash Construction S.C., which was established in 1993, instituted the lawsuit against both Wegagen Bank and Project Design Innovation Trading as the first and second defendants, respectively at the Ninth Civil Bench of the Federal High Court early last week. It claimed a little over 500,000 birr from the bank for failing to pay for the advance payment guarantee and performance bond. The plaintiff also sought nearly 300,000 birr from the second defendant for the delay which caused the value of the contract to increase by 22 percent due to the devaluation of the birr.
The defendants are expected to present their statements of defense at a hearing which will be held on October 29.
Western Donors as Accessories to “Democricide” in Ethiopia
The helping hand that feeds Ethiopians is the same hand that helps bleed Ethiopia. Every year, the U.S., U.K, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan and other Western countries hand out billions of dollars in “humanitarian” and “economic” aid to the regime of dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. Every year, these donors turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the notorious fact that their handouts are used to prop up and fortify a repressive one-man, one-party totalitarian dictatorship. Today, Western donors have collectively embraced the proverbial principle to “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil” of what their “aid” money is doing in Ethiopia.
Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) pried open Western donors’ eyes to see the havoc their aid money is wreaking in Ethiopia and unplugged their ears to hear the truth about the evil they are helping to spread throughout that poor country. In a report entitled, Development Without Freedom [1], HRW sketched out the architecture of a vast kleptocracy (government of thieves) whose lifeblood is continuous and massive infusion of foreign aid. The report represents a devastating indictment of Western donors and their client regime for crimes that, if committed in the donor countries, would constitute Class A felonies:
Led by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the government has used donor-supported programs, salaries, and training opportunities as political weapons to control the population, punish dissent, and undermine political opponents–both real and perceived. Local officials deny these people access to seeds and fertilizer, agricultural land, credit, food aid, and other resources for development. Such politicization has a direct impact on the livelihoods of people for whom access to agricultural inputs is a matter of survival. It also contributes to a broader climate of fear, sending a potent message that basic survival depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.
HRW charges that Zenawi’s regime has used Western aid to benefit its supporters by giving them special access to micro-credit (small loans designed for poor households) loans and benefits under the productive safety net program (multi-year cash payments to those vulnerable to famine to avoid disaster from food shortage emergencies). The regime has misused state educational facilities for political purposes and engaged in systematic political indoctrination of students, repression of teachers and purging of individuals who are unwilling to support the ruling party from their jobs. In sum, after 19 years and “investing” $26 billion in “aid”, the crowning achievement of Western aid in Ethiopia is the establishment and entrenchment of a one-man, one-party totalitarian state!
The Western donors refuse to accept any responsibility for the misuse and abuse of their aid money in Ethiopia; and the conspiracy of silence to cover up the ugly facts uncovered by HRW continues. A few days after HRW released its report, a gathering of vulturous poverty pimps known as the Development Assistance Group (DAG) representing donor states issued a statement denying the undeniable. “We do not concur with the conclusions of the recent HRW report regarding widespread, systematic abuse of development aid in Ethiopia. Our study did not generate any evidence of systematic or widespread distortion.” [2] DAG co-chair Samuel Nyambi was manifestly dismissive of HRW’s findings when he arrogantly proclaimed that “development partners have built into the programmes they support monitoring and safeguard mechanisms that give a reasonable assurance that resources are being used for their intended purposes.” In DAG-istan, what HRW found and reported simply could not happen. HRW made it all up! The report is all lies and fabrications!
The fact of the matter is that it is in DAG’s self-interest to bury the truth and keep covering it up even when the truth it is exhumed for public display. For DAG to acknowledge any part of the HRW evidence is tantamount to self-incrimination. They could never admit that the things HRW reported occurred under their watch. As the HRW reports demonstrates, DAG and the donor countries “have done little to address the problem [aid abuse/misuse] or tackle their own role in underwriting government repression… even though they recognize [civil and political rights] to be central to sustainable socioeconomic development.”
Huddled together in DAG-istan, the poverty pimps have collectively resolved to continue to do their usual aid business in Ethiopia because “broad economic progress outweighs individual political freedoms”. In “their eagerness to show progress in Ethiopia, aid officials are shutting their eyes to the repression lurking behind the official statistics.” They say “their programs are working well and that aid was not being ‘distorted.'” They refuse to carry “out credible, independent investigations into the problem.” The “donor country legislatures and audit institutions [have failed] to examine development aid to Ethiopia to ensure that it is not supporting political repression.” They refuse to “wake up to the fact that some of their aid is contributing to human rights abuses” in Ethiopia. The Western donors have ignored calls to “seriously weigh the impact that their funding has on bolstering repressive structures and practices in Ethiopia.” They are unwilling to do a “fundamental re-thinking of their strategy.”
The People of Ethiopia v. Western Donors
When I wrote my commentaries “Speaking Truth to Strangers”[3] this past June and “J’Accuse” last November [4] , I argued that in a perfect world Western donors in Ethiopia could be prosecuted for being accessories before and after the fact to the crime of first-degree “democricide”, gross human rights violations and for aiding and abetting Zenawi’s kleptocracy. The recent HRW report furnishes a fresh boatload of damning evidence for use in the criminal conspiracy case of The People of Ethiopia v. Western Donor Countries to be tried in the court of international public opinion and in the consciences of all the taxpayers in Western countries shelling out their hard earned money to support one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.
The silent conspiracy between the Western donors and Zenawi’s regime operates on a couple of simple premises. The Western donors in their chauvinistic view believe there are two social classes in Ethiopia. One class consists of the large masses of poor, impoverished, illiterate, malnourished and expendable masses who will not amount to much. The other class consists of the tiny class of elites who maintain a lavish life style for themselves and lord over the masses by manipulating the billions given to them to strengthen their chokehold on the political structure and process. The silent conspiracy is sustained by mutuality of interests. The Western donors want “stability” in Ethiopia, which often means the absence of internal strife that will not undermine their economic and political interests in the country. They want regional “stability”, which means having someone who could be called upon to patrol the neighborhood and kick the rear ends of some nasty terrorists. For those addicted to aid, it’s all about more aid, more free money to play with.
As long as the Western donors meet their dual objectives, they do not give a rat’s behind about what happens to their aid money or what harm it does to the Ethiopian masses. When confronted with the truth about the misuse and abuse of aid money as has been documented in the HRW report, the donors will deny it (“we have built in safeguards, it couldn’t happen), play it down (“nothing to it”), ignore it (“nor worth commenting”), excuse it (“it’s not as bad as it seems”), rationalize it (“we’ve got to work with the government”), and wax legal about it (“there is a sovereignty issue”); and to fool the people occasionally, they will come out in public, put on a show of feigned outrage and pontificate about democracy, the rule of law and the rest of it. After all is said and done, they go right back to business as usual.
Ethiopia: The Potemkin Village
A Potemkin village is “something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance.” Western aid has reduced Ethiopia to a Potemkin village. It’s all a façade, a smoke and mirror show complete with illusions and sleights of hand. DAG is full of it when it counterclaims against HRW’s findings[5]:
The aid provided by members of the DAG in Ethiopia is transforming the lives of millions of poor people through basic services such as healthcare, education and water, and long-term food security. Our programmes are directly helping Ethiopia to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
In their annual dog and pony show, these poverty pimps have been singing the same old song for years: “We are saving lives in Ethiopia by the millions. Imagine how many millions would have perished but for aid; how many children would have not gone to school. See the clinics and hospitals that aid has built.” They challenge us to look at how much economic development aid has brought to Ethiopia: “Behold the shiny glass buildings. See all of the fancy roads that snake over the hills and valleys. Look at all of the universities we helped build. Look at the double digit annual economic growth. Aid money made all that possible.”
What they don’t tell is the fact that many of the shiny buildings have little running water and many more stand unfinished or vacant. The universities have few books and educational materials and even fewer qualified instructional staff. The hospitals and clinics have few doctors and virtually no medical supplies or equipment to care for 85 million people. Ethiopia has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. Inflation has made it impossible for the vast majority of Ethiopian families to meet their basic needs. The poverty pimps say nothing about the fact that famine and hunger stalks a third of the Ethiopia population year around. As to “double digit” economic growth, it is all made up by Zenawi’s regime. [7]. So the smoke and mirror aid show goes on and on. The multi-billion dollar alms industry keeps on humming and squeezing more and more money from the wallets of hard working men and women in the West.
The fact of the matter is that aid is incapable of creating or sustaining economic development (its effects under the best of circumstances are transitory). As Dambissa Moya has argued [6],
In Ethiopia, where aid constitutes more than 90% of the government budget, a mere 2% of the country’s population has access to mobile phones. (The African country average is around 30%.) Might it not be preferable for the government to earn money by selling its mobile phone license, thereby generating much-needed development income and also providing its citizens with telephone service that could, in turn, spur economic activity?
To add insult to injury, it is now becoming clearer than ever that aid has become the principal tool of repression, human rights violations and suppression of democratic institutions in Ethiopia.
Western Donors on the Horns of a Dilemma in Ethiopia
Based on the HRW report, one can reasonably conclude that U.S. aid policy in Ethiopia is reeling out of control. U.S. tax dollars given as aid are being misused by Zenawi for political purposes in violation of U.S. law with the apparent tacit approval of U.S. authorities. Cumulatively, the U.S., as the largest aid donor in Ethiopia, has been singularly responsible for the creation of a repressive Frankenstinian regime over which the U.S. has little influence or leverage.
Zenawi’s contempt for the Western donors in general is nothing less than the proverbial “bite of the hand that feeds.” The Economist recently noted, “Mr Meles’s contempt for what he calls the “neoliberalism” of the West is as plain as his admiration for ‘generous’ and ‘dependable’ China. Chinese Communist Party officials were feted at a recent EPRDF conference… The Europeans and Americans find this galling, since they continue to pay for many of Ethiopia’s hospitals and schools, as well as handing out free food.” Zenawi’s contempt is not just for “neoliberalism” (market driven approach to economic and social policy), but also the very essence of what the U.S. and the West in general claims to be its fundamental values including the rule of law, civil and human rights and free democratic processes and institutions.
After sucking up $26 billion dollars of aid, Zenawi is telling his Western donors that they are chumps and wimps, and he is going to dump them for the rising sun of East Asia. The Western donors don’t seem to get it; and they keep shelling out billions more to keep Zenawi on the dole as he thumbs his nose at them and sneers at their policies. That is nothing new. After troops under the direct command and control of Zenawi massacred 200 unarmed protesters, wounded over 800 more and jailed 30,000 opponents following the May 2005 elections, Western donors took him to the side and told him, “Be nice. Don’t do stuff like that. Anyway, here is a couple billion to do what you will.” In May 2010, Zenawi announced that he had won the elections by 99.6 percent. On September 23, 2010, the U.S. agreed to write him a handout check for a cool $229.3 million. It is sad to see American taxpayers not only having their back pockets picked, but also their rear ends kicked.
I believe there is another less visible, but equally catastrophic, damage caused by the unsupervised Western aid in Ethiopia. The cumulative anecdotal evidence is compelling and shows that Western aid has helped create in Ethiopia a culture of poverty captained by poverty pimps and their client regime. A review of World Bank, IMF, U.N. and US AID studies and reports over the past 5 years demonstrates the near-total dependence of the Ethiopian economy on foreign aid. Today, aid is to the Ethiopian economy as khat (a popular hallucinogenic drug used in the Horn of Africa) is to the poor addict who is unable to function without that drug. Like khat, aid gives the Ethiopian economy a burst of short-term energy followed by economic lethargy and long-term incapacitating addictive dependency. One cannot help but worry over the fact that the next generation of Ethiopians could adopt a way of life and a set of attitudes that glorifies international handouts and panhandling. The millions of Ethiopians permanently trapped in a culture of intergenerational poverty may have no choice but to kneel down before the altar of foreign aid and pray to the gods of free money for their daily existence.
Time to Re-think U.S. Aid Policy in Ethiopia: Need for Congressional and Other Investigations
It is time to re-think U.S. aid policy in Ethiopia, regardless Zenawi’s apparent threat that he will turn to China to get money with no strings attached. The time for U.S. pretension must end. If there is a scintilla of fact that has any merit at all in the damning evidence assembled by HRW (the HRW report is fully corroborated), it is time for the U.S. Congress to get involved and exercise its oversight functions by undertaking a formal investigation.
There are numerous congressional authorization and appropriations subcommittees and committees that have jurisdiction over U.S. foreign assistance programs. The Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations and the House’s Committee on International Relations have primary jurisdiction over bilateral development assistance. To the extent funds are misused from U.S. contributions to multilateral development banks, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Financial Services Committee have authority to investigate. The appropriations committees and subcommittees in both Houses could also look into the HRW’s findings for misspent and illegally expended funds.
The Office of the Inspector General of the State Department has authority to investigate instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that may constitute either criminal wrongdoing or violation of Department regulations. The HRW report provides ample legal basis to launch an official investigation by the OIG. The United States Agency for International Development (US AID) is purportedly committed to rooting out corruption in the use of aid funds. U.S. AID claims, “Corruption damages international development and poverty alleviation by limiting economic growth, reducing social cohesion, skewing public investments, and weakening the rule of law… Democratic governance rooted in the rule of law contributes to long-term, sustainable economic and social development.” AID’s feet need to be held to the fire until it sets up an independent investigation of HRW’s findings. The U.S. Secretary of State could also order an investigation of the HRW findings.
If the Western donors want to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Ethiopian people, they must fully embrace HRW’s prudent and sound recommendations to deal with the problem of aid misuse and abuse.
In light of the government’s human rights violations, direct budget support to the government should not even be considered, and programs supported by international funds should be independently monitored. Credible audit institutions should examine aid to Ethiopia in the context of whether it contributes to political repression. External donors must also demand that Ethiopia does more than pay lip service to respecting fundamental human rights; they must be more vocal about the steps Ethiopia should take to ensure that its citizens enjoy the rights to which they are entitled under the country’s constitution and international human rights law.
No Business Like the Panhandling Business
Anyone who says “there is no business like show business,” has not tried the international alms (begging) business. What could be more fun than sitting around and waiting for the “aid man” to show up and hand out free money to use like a drunken sailor. International panhandling is a lucrative business. Everybody is in it. The panhandlers who live off handouts frolic in their dreams every night shaking down the aid money tree. The rock stars, bankers and aid bureaucrats who work 24/7 peddling aid across the globe are intoxicated by it. Even ivy league professors have gotten into the act; they have found a new calling as “entrepreneurs of aid” in much the same way as the procurers of the world’s oldest profession. Giving alms to Ethiopia is one of the favorite “indulgences” of the Western donors. It is their way of sanitizing their consciences into believing that they are doing good in Africa. If they really want to do good, let them teach Ethiopians how to fish and be self-sufficient. They don’t need to supply a villainous fish monger never-ending boatloads of fish and give him the power to decide who to feed and who to bleed.
Meles Zenawi’s new, non-Tigrean, “Foreign Affairs Minister” Hailemariam Desalegn has assumed his position and one of his first major tasks is a meeting with an English football team, while the real Foreign Affairs Minister, Berhan GebreKristos, a central committee member of the Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne), is calling on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his other foreign counterparts. Individuals like Hailemariam have a conscience of a pig. That’s why they allow Meles Zenawi to use them as puppets while giving real power only to his ethnic group. For every non-Tigrean minister, there is a Tigrean official (deputy or state minister) who holds real power.
The following is a report by the Woyanne-controlled Ethiopian News Agency (ENA):
Foreign Affairs Minister Holds Talks With English Premier League
Addis Ababa (ENA) – Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn held talks here on Monday with the Chairman of the English Premier League, David Richards.
Hailemariam said the working with the England Premier League would revive Ethiopian football.
He recalled that Ethiopia is one of the founders of African foot ball teams and has a significant contribution for the development of football in Africa.
However, he said, Ethiopia still lags behind compared to other African countries.
Richards said on his part that he was happy about everything he has seen in Ethiopia.
The prevalence of peace and security in the country in particular would have a significant contribution for the development of sport.
