Since the dawn of African independence from colonialism in the early 1960s, African liberation leaders and founding fathers qua dictators, military junta and “new breed” leaders have sought to justify the one-man, one-party state — and avoid genuine multiparty democracy — by fabricating a blend of self-serving arguments which converge on the notion that in Africa there is a democracy before democracy. The core argument can be restated in different ways: Before Africa can have political democracy, it must have economic democracy. Africans are more concerned about meeting their economic needs than having abstract political rights. Economic development necessarily requires sacrifices in political rights. African democracy is a different species of democracy which has roots in African culture and history. African societies are plagued by ethnic, tribal and religious conflicts which can be solved not by Western-style liberal democracy but within the framework of the traditional African institutions of consensus-building, elder mediation and conciliation. Western-style democracy is unworkable, alien and inappropriate to Africans because the necessary preconditions for such a system are not present. Widespread poverty, low per capita incomes, a tiny middle class and the absence of a democratic civic culture render such a system incongruous with African realities. Liberal democracy could come to Africa only after significant economic development has been achieved. Any premature introduction or misguided imposition of it by the West could actually harm Africans by destroying their budding faith in democracy itself.
Stripped of rhetorical flourish, such self-serving arguments exploit manifest contradictions and deficits in African societies for the purposes of justifying the consolidation and fortification of the powers of the one-man, one-party state, and preventing the institutionalization of a competitive multiparty democratic process with electoral and constitutional accountability. The claim of primacy of “economic democracy” is based on an impressionistic (not empirically substantiated) assumption that the masses of poor, illiterate, hungry and sick Africans are too dumb to appreciate “political democracy”. In other words, the African masses are interested in the politics of the belly and not the politics of democracy and political rights. Africans live for and by bread alone. Elections, legal rights and liberties are meaningless to the poor and hungry masses. This assumption is pure nonsense as various well designed and executed empirical studies of democratic attitudes in Africa have shown. The claim of ethnic conflict to justify the one-man, one-party system is internally self-contradictory. If indeed the communalism and the institutions of traditional, pre-colonial African societies are the most effective means for dispute resolution and consensus-building, it is illogical to insist on investing a single leader and his party with sweeping and expansive powers.
All the layered sophistry and paralogism of African dictators is intended to mask their insatiable hunger for power and produce one set of self-serving axiomatic conclusions: Africa is not yet ready for genuine multiparty democracy. The one-man, one-party system is the only means to save Africa from itself, and from complete social, economic and political implosion. The one-man, one-party system will evolve into a genuine multiparty democracy at some undetermined time in the future. In the meantime, the one-man, one-party show must go on.
Post-independence African history is instructive in understanding the scourge of the one-man, and the curse of one-party rule in Africa. Ghana’s independence from colonialism as the first sub-Saharan African country in 1957, and the role played by its first prime minister and later president Kwame Nkrumah is central to understanding the pervasive problem of civilian and military dictatorships in Africa. Ghana was undoubtedly the most economically and socially advanced country in sub-Saharan Africa with an advanced educational system and relatively well-developed infrastructures when it gained its independence. Nkrumah was a role model for the dozens of leaders of African countries that achieved independence in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite Nkruma’s status as the unrivalled champion of Pan-Africanism and strong advocacy for a united Africa, he was also the single individual most responsible for casting the mold for the one-man, one-party dictatorship in post-independence Africa. Barely a year into his administration, the once fiery anti-colonial advocate of political rights and democracy had transformed himself into a power-hungry despot. He enacted a law making labor strikes illegal. He declared it was unpatriotic to strike. Paranoid about his opposition, he enacted a preventive detention act which gave him sweeping powers to arrest and detain any person suspected of treason without due process of law. He even dismissed the chief justice of Ghanaian Supreme Court, Sir Arku Korsah, when a three-judge panel Korsah headed acquitted suspects accused of plotting a coup. Nkrumah amended the constitution making his party, the Convention People’s Party, the only legal party in the country. He capped his political career by having himself declared president-for-life.
Other African leaders followed in Nkrumah’s footsteps. Julius Nyrere became the first president of Tanganyka (Tanzania) in 1962 and announced his brand of African socialism built around rural folks and their traditional values in a ujamma (extended family) system. Millions of villagers were forced into collectivized agriculture. He modeled his constitution after Ghana’s and followed Nkruma’s script. Nyrere established a one-man, one-party state around his Tanganyika African National Union, outlawed strikes, nationalized private banks and industries, duplicated Nkruma’s preventive detention act to go after his opponents and greatly increased his personal power.
With the exception of a few countries, Africa had been incurably infected by Nkrumah’s one-man, one-party virus before the end of the 1960s. Most of the leaders of the newly independent African countries followed Nkrumaha’s political formula by declaring states of emergency, suspending their constitutions, conferring unlimited executive powers upon themselves, and enacting oppressive laws which enabled them to arrest, detain and persecute their rivals, dissenters, and others they considered threats at will.
The economic and political outcomes of the one-man, one-party dictatorships by the end of the 1960s were dismal. Nkrumah’s program of rapid industrialization by reducing Ghana’s dependence on foreign capital and imports had a devastating effect on its important cocoa export sector. Many of the socialist economic development projects he launched failed. By the time he was overthrown in a military coup in 1966, Ghana had fallen from one of the richest African countries to one of the poorest. Similarly, Tanzania nose-dived from the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa to the largest importer of agricultural products. The one-man, one-party state also proved to be ineffective in reducing ethnic tensions and preventing conflict. Civil wars, genocides, low level ethnic conflicts and corruption spread throughout the continent like wildfire.
Waiting in the wings were Africa’s soldiers. Accusing the civilian governments of corruption, incompetence and mismanagement of the economy and claiming a patriotic duty to rescue their countries from collapse, military officers knocked off these governments one by one. Gen. Joseph Mobutu seized power in the Congo (Zaire) following a protracted political struggle between Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu. Col. Houari Boumedienne overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria. A group of army officers overthrew the monarchy in Brundi. In the Central African Republic, Col. Bokassa (later Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa) overthrew David Dacko. Gen. Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote in Uganda. Nigeria flipped two coups, one by Gen. Johnson Ironsi who was overthrown by Gen. Yakubu Gowon. Many other African countries suffered similar fates.
There is overwhelming evidence to show that the one-man, one-party state has been a total failure in Africa over the past one-half century. Under these dictatorships, African countries have faced civil and border wars and ethnic and religious strife. Famine, malnutrition and insufficient food production have caused the deaths of millions of Africans. The poverty and unemployment rates continue to rise despite billions in foreign aid and loans. Infant mortality is nearly 100 per thousand (compared to 5 in the United States). Africans have the lowest life expectancies in the world. After fifty years of independence per capita income in much of Africa had declined so much that President Obama had to artfully remind Africans in his speech in Ghana: “Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born, have been badly outpaced.” Politically, the one-man, one-party dictatorships have brought neither ethnic harmony nor good governance; and they have failed to forge a common national identity for their people.
Today we still hear the same rubbish about a democracy before democracy recycled by a “new breed” of silver-tongued African leaders. Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of the one-man, one-party state in Ethiopia says:
Establishing democracy in Africa is bound to take a long time and that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture or guarantee a democratic exercise of rule. Creating a democracy in poverty-ridden and illiterate societies that have not yet fully embraced democratic values and are not yet familiar with democratic concepts, rules and procedures is bound to take a long time and to exact huge costs.
Similar arguments are made by Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda; and even the wily old coyote, Robert Mugabe, pulls the same stunt at age 85 to justify clinging to power.
The “new breed” dictators are trying to sell the same old snake oil in a new bottle to Africans. But no one is fooled by the sweet-talking, iron-fisted new breed dictators who try to put a kinder and gentler face on their dictatorship, brutality and corruption. They should spare us their empty promises and hypocritical moral pontifications. For one-half century, Africans have been told democracy requires sacrifices and pain; and they must look inwards to their village communities, traditional elders and consensus dialogue to find the answers. Africans don’t want to hear that “democracy” takes time and they must wait, and wait and wait as the new breed of dictators pick the continent clean right down to the bare bones. Africans want Africa to no longer be the world’s cesspool of corruption, criminality and cruelty.
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as democracy before democracy. There could be either democracy or one-man, one-party dictatorships in Africa. We all know exactly what the latter means. The only question is how best to implement constitutional multiparty systems in Africa. On this question, there may be an ironic twist of history. As Ghana was the original model of the one-man, one-party state in Africa, Ghana today could be the model of constitutional multiparty democracy in Africa.
As I have argued previously argued[1], Ghana today has a functioning competitive multiparty political system guided by its Constitution. Article 55 guarantees “Every citizen of Ghana of voting age has the right to join a political party.” Political parties are free to organize and “disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programmes of a national character.” BUT TRIBAL AND ETHNIC PARTIES ARE ILLEGAL IN GHANA under Article 55 (4). That is the key to Ghana’s political success. The Ghanaians also have an independent Electoral Commission which ensures the integrity of the electoral process, and under Article 46 is an institution “not subject to the direction or control of any person or authority.” Ghanaians enjoy many a panoply of political civil, economic, social and cultural rights. In 2008, Ghana (population 23 million) ranked 31 out of 173 countries worldwide on World Press Freedom Index (Ethiopia- population 80 million ranked 142/173). There are more than 133 private newspapers, 110 FM radio stations and 2 state-owned dailies. Ghanaians express their opinions without fear of government retaliation. The rule of law is upheld and the government follows and respects the Constitution. Ghana has an independent judiciary which is vital to the observance of the rule of law and protection of civil liberties. Political leaders and public officials abide by the rulings and decisions of the courts and other fact-finding inquiry commissions. Ghana is certainly not a utopia, but it is proof positive that multiparty constitutional democracy can and will work in Africa.
Africa’s and Ethiopia’s future in the 21st Brave New Globalized Century lie in genuine multiparty democracy, not in recycled one-man, one-party, pie-in-the-sky-promising dictatorships. Poverty, ethnic conflict, illiteracy and all of the other social ills will continue to haunt Africa for decades to come. Dealing effectively with these issues can not be left to failed-beyond-a-shadow-of-doubt, one-man, one-party dictatorships. If Africa is to be saved from total collapse, its ordinary people must be fully empowered in an open, pluralistic and competitive multiparty political process. For those who have any doubts about Ethiopia’s readiness for genuine multiparty democracy, let them look at the facts of the 2005 election: 26 million eligible Ethiopians were registered to vote in that election out of a population of 74 million.A stunning 90 percent of the 26 million actually voted. NO MORE ONE-MAN, ONE-PARTY DICTATORSHIPS IN AFRICA. GENUINE MULTIPARTY DEMOCRACY, NOW!
[1] http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/10396
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Ethiopian Airlines plane with 85 passengers on board crashed into the Mediterranean sea shortly after taking off from Beirut international airport in the early hours of Monday, airport sources said. The plane, said to be a Boeing (BA.N) 737 by one source, disappeared off the radar some five minutes after takeoff.
About 50 passengers were Lebanese nationals, most of the others were Ethiopians, the sources said. There were thought to be seven crew members.
The plane took off shortly after its scheduled time of 3:10 a.m. (0010 GMT), flying south-west, the sources said.
Ethiopian Airlines’ website shows it has a flight from Beirut to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa around that time, operating a Boeing 737. The airline could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to one source, residents on the coast saw a plane on fire crashing.
Senior Lebanese officials headed to Rafik Hariri International Airport after news of the crash. The plane had flown in from Addis Ababa earlier in the night, the sources said.
Hundreds of Ethiopians work as domestic helpers in Lebanon.
(Reporting by Nadim Ladki; editing by Robin Pomeroy)
(HRW) — Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010. These will be the first national elections since 2005, when post-election protests resulted in the deaths of at least 200 protesters, many of them victims of excessive use of force by the police. Broad patterns of government repression have prevented the emergence of organized opposition in most of the country. In December 2008 the government re-imprisoned opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa for life after she made remarks that allegedly violated the terms of an earlier pardon.
In 2009 the government passed two pieces of legislation that codify some of the worst aspects of the slide towards deeper repression and political intolerance. A civil society law passed in January is one of the most restrictive of its kind, and its provisions will make most independent human rights work impossible. A new counterterrorism law passed in July permits the government and security forces to prosecute political protesters and non-violent expressions of dissent as acts of terrorism.
Political Repression and the 2010 Elections
As Ethiopia heads toward nationwide elections, the government continues to clamp down on the already limited space for dissent or independent political activity. Ordinary citizens who criticize government policies or officials frequently face arrest on trumped-up accusations of belonging to illegal “anti-peace” groups, including armed opposition movements. Officials sometimes bring criminal cases in a manner that appears to selectively target government critics, as when in June 2009 prominent human rights activist Abebe Worke was charged with illegal importation of radio equipment and ultimately fled the country. In the countryside government-supplied (and donor-funded) agricultural assistance and other resources are often used as leverage to punish and prevent dissent, or to compel individuals into joining the ruling party.
The opposition is in disarray, but the government has shown little willingness to tolerate potential challengers. In December 2008 the security forces re-arrested Birtukan Midekssa, leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party, which had begun to build a grassroots following in the capital. The government announced that Birtukan would be jailed for life because she had made public remarks that violated the terms of an earlier pardon for alleged acts of treason surrounding the 2005 elections. The authorities stated that there was no need for a trial as the move was a mere legal technicality.
In July the Ethiopian government passed a new anti-terrorism law. The law provides broad powers to the police, and harsh criminal penalties can be applied to political protesters and others who engage in acts of nonviolent political dissent. Some of its provisions appear tailored less toward addressing terrorism and more toward allowing for a heavy-handed response to mass public unrest, like that which followed Ethiopia’s 2005 elections.
Civil Society Activism and Media Freedom
The space for independent civil society activity in Ethiopia, already extremely narrow, shrank dramatically in 2009. In January the government passed a new civil society law whose provisions are among the most restrictive of any comparable law anywhere in the world. The law makes any work that touches on human rights or governance issues illegal if carried out by foreign non-governmental organizations, and labels any Ethiopian organization that receives more than 10 percent of its funding from sources outside of Ethiopia as “foreign.” The law makes most independent human rights work virtually impossible, and human rights work deemed illegal under the law is punishable as a criminal offense.
Ethiopia passed a new media law in 2008 that improved upon several repressive aspects of the previous legal regime. The space for independent media activity in Ethiopia remains severely constrained, however. In August two journalists were jailed on charges derived partly from Ethiopia’s old, and now defunct, press proclamation. Ethiopia’s new anti-terror law contains provisions that will impact the media by making journalists and editors potential accomplices in acts of terrorism if they publish statements seen as encouraging or supporting terrorist acts, or even, simply, political protest.
Pretrial Detention and Torture
The Ethiopian government continues its longstanding practice of using lengthy periods of pretrial and pre-charge detention to punish critics and opposition activists, even where no criminal charges are ultimately pursued. Numerous prominent ethnic Oromo Ethiopians have been detained in recent years on charges of providing support to the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF); in almost none of these cases have charges been pursued, but the accused, including opposition activists, have remained in detention for long periods. Canadian national Bashir Makhtal was convicted on charges of supporting the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in July, after a trial that was widely criticized as unfair; he was in detention for two-and-a-half years before his sentence was handed down, and he was unable to access legal counsel and consular representatives for much of that period.
Not only are periods of pretrial detention punitively long, but detainees and convicted prisoners alike face torture and other ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch and other organizations have documented consistent patterns of torture in police and military custody for many years. The Ethiopian government regularly responds that these abuses do not exist, but even the government’s own Human Rights Commission acknowledged in its 2009 annual report that torture and other abuses had taken place in several detention facilities, including in Ambo and Nekemte.
Impunity for Military Abuses
The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) has committed serious abuses, in some cases amounting to war crimes or crimes against humanity, in several different conflicts in recent years. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any meaningful efforts to hold the officers or government officials most responsible for those abuses to account. The only government response to crimes against humanity and other serious abuses committed by the military during a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in Gambella in late 2003 and 2004 was an inquiry that prosecuted a handful of junior personnel for deliberate and widespread patterns of abuse. No one has been investigated or held to account for war crimes and other widespread violations of the laws of war during Ethiopia’s bloody military intervention in neighboring Somalia from 2006 to 2008.
In August 2008 the Ethiopian government did purport to launch an inquiry into allegations of serious crimes in Somali Regional State, where the armed forces have been fighting a campaign against the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front for many years. The inquiry was sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lacked independence, and concluded that no serious abuses took place. To date the government continues to restrict access of independent investigators into the area.
Relations in the Horn of Africa
In August the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission issued its final rulings on monetary damages stemming from the bloody 1998-2000 border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nonetheless the two countries remain locked in an intractable dispute about the demarcation of the heavily militarized frontier. Eritrea continues to play a destabilizing role throughout the Horn of Africa through its efforts to undermine and attack the government of Ethiopia wherever possible. The government of President Isayas Afewerki hosts and materially supports fighters from Ethiopian rebel movements, including the Oromo Liberation Front. Eritrea has also pursued a policy of supporting armed opposition groups in Somalia as a way of undermining Ethiopia’s support for the country’s weak Transitional Federal Government.
Key International Actors
Ethiopia is one of the most aid-dependant countries in the world and received more than US$2 billion in 2009, but its major donors have been unwilling to confront the government over its worsening human rights record. Even as the country slides deeper into repression, the Ethiopian government uses development aid funding as leverage against the donors who provide it-many donors fear that the government would discontinue or scale back their aid programs should they speak out on human rights concerns. This trend is perhaps best exemplified by the United Kingdom, whose government has consistently chosen to remain silent in order to protect its annual £130 million worth of bilateral aid and development programs.
Donors are also fearful of jeopardizing access for humanitarian organizations to respond to the drought and worsening food crisis. Millions of Ethiopians depend on food aid, and the government has sought to minimize the scale of the crisis and restrict access for independent surveys and response.
While Ethiopia’s government puts in place measures to control the elections in 2010, many donors have ignored the larger trends and focused instead on negotiating with the government to allow them to send election observers.
A significant shift in donor policy toward Ethiopia would likely have to be led by the US government, Ethiopia’s largest donor and most important political ally on the world stage. But President Barack Obama’s administration has yet to depart from the policies of the Bush administration, which consistently refused to speak out against abuses in Ethiopia. While the reasons may be different-the current government is not as narrowly focused on security cooperation with Ethiopia as was the Bush administration- thus far the practical results have been the same. The events described above attracted little public protest from the US government in 2009.
(Ogaden Online) — Reports reaching the Ogaden Online service desk from the city of Diridhaba in the province of Shiniile confirm the existence of a recent pitched battle that took place between the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) troops stationed in the area and the local population.
It is reported that towards the end of last week, the civilians held an area-wide demonstration to protest the recent confiscation by the Woyanne militia of a fertile agricultural land estimated at 60,000 hectares. Reliable sources within the TPLF and in Addis Ababa intimated that the land was clandestinely sold to a Chinese consortium
Eyewitnesses reported that the TPLF troops, instead of letting the citizens vent their bent up anger and frustration through the peaceful demonstration, started shooting everyone on sight. Ogaden civilians, once they realized what was going on, immediately dispersed. However, Ogaden Online reporters in the area confirmed that instead of waiting out the TPLF troops to return to their barracks, as used to be the norm, the residents, many of whom were nomads who have firearms for protecting their livestock from wild animals in the area, went back to their homes and came back armed and ready to fight the TPLF gangs.
Eyewitnesses reported that the TPLF troops were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of armed civilians from all corners of the city. As a result, the TPLF troops were quickly overrun by the local civilians. It is reported that the TPLF militias left five of their dead in the area and went back to their barracks. The casualty figured from the Woyanne side is unknown.
The civilians were said to have lost one, but there are many injuries sustained by the civilian side. The city is still tense. There are reports that the TPLF militias have consulted with their bosses in Addis Ababa on what to do next. It is said they are awaiting further instructions. Many of the civilians are said to have sworn that rather than vacate their fertile land, they would die facing off the TPLF militias and any other group that attempts to confiscate their land.
So far, media coverage of China’s involvement in Africa has mostly been about investment. Stories of Chinese engineers in hard hats standing by roads up mountains in Ethiopia. Stories of Chinese farmers moving to Zambia.
But, in a push to extent its economic reach, China is now making a very real effort to export its culture to the world’s poorest continent. Last year the Asian giant overtook the U.S. as Africa’s top trading partner, confirming to the West that it has a real battle on its hands to maintain its influence over African nations.
But, while China’s economic influence is now mighty and its cheap goods can be bought everywhere from Lagos to tiny tribal villages in remotest Ethiopia, Africans, especially young ones, still admire and try to copy U.S. culture.
Middle class teenagers in Nairobi dress like suburban kids from Atlanta, posters of Obama adorn minibus windows in Kinshasa, American hip-hop is everywhere.
China now seems to have realised this.
Here in Addis Ababa this week China and Ethiopia signed an agreement to work on a “cultural exchange program” from 2010 to 2013. Ethiopia’s state news agency said the countries will dispatch “art troupes, artists, writers and art exhibitions” to each other. It will be interesting to see how mutual the traffic is.
And it’s not just China trying to use culture to secure access to a continent overflowing with mineral resources and a largely untapped consumer market of nearly 1 billion people with more money in their pockets each year.
Addis Ababa is host to Chinese, Indian and even Turkish schools where Ethiopian children must sing the national anthems of those countries every morning, where they learn their languages, their dances, their songs, their particular set of manners. And where they learn a foreign history alongside their own.
Such schools and “cultural exchange programs” are mushrooming all over the continent as the war for influence over African countries heats up.
Similar schools from the European powers have, of course, existed for years, educating and, sometimes indoctrinating, Africa’s elite. But the British, the French, the Germans and the Spanish are losing ground to the world’s emerging powers.
So how will this all play out? What will the impact of these new cultural imports be on the individual cultures of African countries, arguably still the most unique and preserved in the world? Is this really just imperialism version 2.0?
Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb said the upper chamber shouldn’t move forward with healthcare or any other bills until Brown is sworn in.
“In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process,” Webb said in a statement. “To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
The statement from the centrist Webb is a warning shot to Democratic leaders who are now forced to confront how to move forward with health reform efforts and other top priorities in the wake of Brown’s victory. Republicans now control 41 votes in the Senate, meaning they will have enough votes to sustain a filibuster if they all stick together.
The issue is critically important to healthcare, as well. Some lawmakers had talked about rushing to finish their health reform efforts before Brown could be seated, which could take as long as 10 to 15 days under Massachusetts law.
It’s not clear how Webb’s statement affects that; the senator gave no indication as to whether or not he’d join with the GOP to stop movement on legislation until Brown’s seated, if push comes to shove. – The Hill
Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) supported Webb’s statement publicly Wednesday, with reports that “about 10” backed it implicitly.
“As I said to somebody last night:, everybody needs to get the Washington wax out of their ears and listen and pay attention that people out there believe that we are going too far, too fast,” McCaskill told Politico.
“I’ve said to the leader, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to try to pass another bill in the Senate before Sen. Scott Brown is seated,” she added. “I think that’s a bad idea.”
McCaskill said Democrats need to “hunker down and be realistic about what we can accomplish and certainly realize that if we don’t pay attention to what the voters say in Massachusetts, then I think we do so at the peril of our party’s effectiveness.”
On the House side, many Representatives followed Webb’s lead. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) told a constituents’ meeting that “both versions [of Obamacare], for all intents and purposes, are dead because of Massachusetts…. The public has sent a message.”
Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) agreed the House could not now accept the Senate healthcare bill, and said he’d vote against it.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen said, “Health care was also part of the debate, and the people of Massachusetts were right to be upset about provisions in the Senate bill like the Nebraska purchase and other special deals.”
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) warned, “We’ve abandoned our principles on healthcare, such as expanding Medicare. We’ve driven away the voters on this…. Congressional leaders are whistling past the graveyard…. Take a step back and say, ‘We get the message.’ The independent voters don’t like it. Take a jobs bill, and add healthcare by expanding Medicare.”
So far, media coverage of China’s involvement in Africa has mostly been about investment. Stories of Chinese engineers in hard hats standing by roads up mountains in Ethiopia. Stories of Chinese farmers moving to Zambia. 