By Yilma Bekele
Siege is a strong term. It is normally used to describe a war situation. The invading army resorts to siege when it encounters a fortress or robust defense it cannot overcome easily. When a siege occurs the enemy surrounds the city or fortification and does not allow reinforcements to come in or permit those inside to escape.
The most famous modern day siege is that of the ‘Siege of Leningrad’ by Nazi troops during World War II. It lasted twenty-nine months. The Soviet Union lost over a million and half people. We are witnessing ‘Gaza under siege’ by Israel as you are reading this article. Human history is full of atrocities as such.
Our country Ethiopia is under siege. We are not under invasion by a foreign force. Who needs enemies when you have friends so they say. We are under siege by a homegrown enemy. We find ourselves in the most unenviable situation of crying wolf but the wolf is us. We are in a strange predicament and it is very confusing to outsiders and ourselves.
You can rally people around a foreign enemy. The enemy is identifiable. The enemy is easy to target. The brain is more willing to accept the definition of ‘enemy’. What we got in Ethiopia is blurred vision. The enemy has watered down the definition. The enemy is also relentless. The whole country is one battleground. No one is immune from being incorporated or made into a subsidiary.
Why would anybody want to destroy Ethiopia is a good question. What a diabolical thing to say or think is a rational reaction. Are you sure Ethiopia is the target is a common response. On the other hand we could be victims of what is known as the ‘law of unintended consequences’. This is how Wikipedia defines the law.
The “law of unintended consequences” (also called the “law of unforeseen consequences”) states that any purposeful action will produce some unintended consequences…
Stated in other words, each cause more than one effect and these effects will invariably include at least one unforeseen side effect. The unintended side effect can potentially be more significant than any of the intended effects.
This is a good point as any trying to understand our current crisis. What exactly was Ato Meles fighting for? How did he go about to attain that goal?
He started as an ethnic study group and formed an ethnic liberation organization. Although all those before him and around him were organized as a multi-national he choose the ethnic road.
There lies the fork on the road. His organization took the easy path. They choose to fight injustice by rallying around primitive ethnicity rather than nationality. It was a short cut.
Our current dilemma has been brewing for eighteen years or so but the seeds were planted over forty years ago. The late sixties and seventies were a time of turmoil. There were two super powers and two contending ideologies. The West was vilified due to its history of colonialism and the then war in Vietnam. Marxism was getting acceptance in the new emerging nations. Our country’s intellectuals were drawn into this philosophy to solve the many problems facing our country. The two questions of land ownership and good governance were the main issues.
We gave birth to the military junta. It was a miscarriage. Despite the Derge lasting seventeen years it was an utter failure in bringing about a positive change. We were caught between the East and the West and we were not ready or able to play that game. Everything our forefathers taught us was turned upside down. All that we learned in thousands of years were discarded in a matter of days. All that which made us Ethiopian was declared old, backward, reactionary and other not favorable adjectives. We know for a fact that most of our core beliefs were challenged and ruled unfit for the new Ethiopia.
Our current leaders are the children of that era. Meles and company built their new psudo ideology on that premise. They also took the then ascending theory of socialism as a dogma instead of a scientific philosophy to be interpreted and reinterpreted as situations change. As Lenin bastardized scientific Marxism to suit his notion of the petty bourgeois seizing power in the name of the proletariat, as Mao Tse Tung reinterpreted Lenin and substituted the peasantry for the petty bourgeois our own TPLF came up with the notion of ethnic based organization to seize and hold power.
We are all products of our environment despite what some US Senators tried to claim otherwise during the recent hearing during Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation. Ato Meles and his mentor Aboy Sebhat are perfect specimens of this assertion. Ato Meles and his comrade’s tunnel vision came from their insular upbringing in the little Village of Adwa. For Meles and company someone born in Hawzen down street from Adwa is an outsider. The rest of Ethiopia is a foreign land. It will not be farfetched to claim that it was during his trip to Addis to attend high school that Ato Meles even met an Oromo, a Gurage or a Sidama.
The many years they spent fighting the Derge was not spent in devising solutions to bring about change but rather sharpening the skills necessary to control and subjugate others. The many writings by ex TPLF members show that disproportionate amount of resources were allocated to eliminating internal dissent rather than building a democratic institution. It is not far fetched to assert that TPLF killed or exiled more Tigrean than the Derge.
What exactly did they bring with them when they marched into Addis as victors on that fateful day in 1991? They brought with them the concept of Kilil, a new revised ethnic map and a new flag. All these years fighting and this is all they have to show for it? Unfortunately this is it! No new agenda to improve agriculture, no new program to encourage rebuilding of industries or learning centers or no new idea to return our old nation on the path of reclaiming our eminence place in Africa.
It was the Derge dressed up in civilian uniform. They were happy to inherit all Derge institutions that were set up for coercion. They took ‘Kebele’ organizations and replaced the heads not the function, they appropriated internal security intact and installed their trained killers and psychos as people in charge. They inherited all land and property as state asset. They transferred state owned industries to EFFORT and called it privatization. They changed the name of their ideology from Marxism-Leninism and Enver Hoxha thought to Revolutionary Democracy.
The last eighteen years they went about looting everything that is of any value. In the words of Aboy Sebhat they built EFFORT as the premier corporation in the country. That claim is incorrect. They robed from Ethiopia. To think TPLF leaders who have never worked for a living, never paid bills from their hard earned income, never even have a simple bank account in their name but were able to build such an enterprise is absurd. It is not an exaggeration to claim EFFORT is bigger than Ethiopia. TPLF is one gigantic wealth sucking vacuum devise with tentacles in all aspect of the life of our people.
Transportation is owned by the Foreign Minister, Sugar is owned by the Military Generals, Brewery is owned by advisors, building and engineering is owned by party hacks, telecommunications and media is owned by the first lady, banking is owned by the party, coffee and other commodities are under the new exchange (TPLF subsidiary) and so on so forth. There isn’t a single aspect of movement of capital in the country without the involvement of TPLF or its subsidiaries.
This is where the ‘law of unintended consequences come in.’ Ato Meles and company organized this huge machine to loot and pillage. Think of TPLF as the parasite and Ethiopia the host. The parasite has been feeding wantonly for the last eighteen years. The host is dying. The well being of the parasite has the exact opposite effect on the host. The parasite is fat and flabby. The host is just skin and bones. The natural outcome is for both host and parasite to perish. It is possible the parasite can move on and find another host. But the host is too weak to survive. Other parasites are hovering to devour what is left of it.
On the other hand the host can wake up from its long slumber and develop an anti biotic to save it self. In this scenario the host did develop a vaccine to protect itself. Kinijit was the vaccine. It was not a fully developed vaccine. The parasite was able to adapt. It was mimicking the HIV virus. It became a moving target. What is required is what is known as a ‘cocktail’ drug. Scientists found out that HIV develops resistance to every antiviral drug and once one drug fails the whole combination is not effective anymore. The trick was finding the right combination of drugs. Kinijit was stuck on the concept of working within the system. A single drug solution. But TPLF was like our HIV lentivirus. One drug alone is not enough. Like the HIV scientists we have to come up with a ‘cocktail’ of resistance combinations. Some call it ‘hulegeb tigil’.
Now TPLF have come to another crossroads. This unquenchable thirst they have to amass wealth is creating its own contradictions. The well is in the process of drying up. What to do? Of course there is always the option of skipping town in the cover of darkness. But that will be admitting guilt thus hunting them down becomes a simple process. There is always the possibility of fanning civil war. But the ensuing chaos might consume them too. Except for a few million stashed away in foreign banks most of the wealth is still sitting in Ethiopia. With modern forensic accounting every penny deposited outside can be traced and any way what is the point of having it if you can’t enjoy it. Their unabashed greed is becoming their undoing.
In an attempt to understand their destructive polices we ascribe such explanations as their hate towards our country, being Eritrean (good old Eritrea always there) their vow to destroy our old kingdom or their grand plan to liberate Tigre as a nation. I have never been comfortable looking into people’s motives. I am more interested in their action. The action of the TPLF mafia group is that of a petty thief but on a national scale.
The issue in front of us is that the cadres are in the process of destroying our homeland. The question put to each and every one of us is what are you going to do about it? Yes, you what is your next move. You can sit in a coffee house or a family gathering and recount the many horror stories of TPLF and company. You can even blame the opposition for not uniting or for splitting into factions at a drop of a hat. Unfortunately that would not absolve you of your responsibilities. Why you want to shift responsibility unto others is strange. You still have not answered the question what are you doing about it? Fighting injustice takes many forms. We all are not cut out to be solders. What is asked of us is to contribute positively to liberate our homeland so we have some place to go at the end of the day.
What is universally clear is no masters have voluntarily let his slaves go, no colonialist have granted freedom without a fight, no dictator have vacated power without struggle. Ato Meles and his inner group have to be forced to see the dead end road they are traveling. It is not about rational discussion with irrational people. Their greed is their Achilles heel. Their perceived economic strength is their vulnerability. That is where we should concentrate our fire. We don’t have to bring them down. We just have to make them stagger and they will fall.
As Henry Thoreau said ‘there are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots…’ don’t tell me you are still hacking at the branches!
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – A mysterious disease has killed 18 people and affected around 150 others in central Ethiopia, the UN humanitarian office said Monday.
“Although the signs and symptoms of the disease include headache, fever, neck stiffness, diarrhea and vomitting — all related to meningitis, the specific disease has not yet been confirmed,” it said in a statement.
The Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the disease erupted on July 4.
Meanwhile, an outbreak of typhoid fever has killed one person and affected more than 100 in the northern Tigray region, OCHA said, adding that 11 others have also died of acute watery diarrhea across the country.
The Horn of Africa nation is also facing food shortages in some parts with over six million of its people needing food aid due to poor rains, according to the UN.
Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country after Nigeria with around 77 million inhabitants.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Former world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield’s exhibition match in Ethiopia has been postponed for September, his opponent Sammy Retta told AFP on Monday.
The fight, to raise funds for AIDS, was set to take place in Addis Ababa on July 26, but organisers had to reschedule after a request from the government.
“The government wanted the match to correspond with Ethiopia’s new year celebrations on September 11, so we both agreed,” Retta said in a phone interview.
Retta, an Ethiopian-born American, is a 35-year-old with a record of 18 wins and three losses in super-middleweight bouts.
At 230 pounds, he now outweighs his more illustrious rival.
The bout was also meant to serve as a warm-up for four-time world champion Holyfield, who targeted another crack at the world title in September.
Retta however, claimed that the 46-year-old’s managers had also postponed that match for an undisclosed date in December.
Holyfield failed to clinch a fifth title during his last attempt late last year when he lost to Russian Valuev.
Valuev, the tallest and heaviest champion of all-time according to experts, is currently the holder of the World Boxing Association title.
The September fight will rank as one of the highest-profile all-American boxing bouts on African soil since the legendary 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” that pitted Muhammad Ali against George Foreman in the former Zaire.
By Wondwossen Mezlekia
In the past few weeks, too many readers asked me to share my views on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) and wanted to know what I think about its effects on the Ethiopian coffee sector in general, and the Specialty coffee industry in particular. I was also asked similar questions by producers of the PBS Wide Angle program that released this documentary program featuring Eleni Gebre-Medhin, founder of the ECX.
While I continue to respond to as many of your emails as I can, I also thought it might be useful to post my comments here on the blog for everyone else to see. So, in the coming couple of days, I will post my views on the most frequently asked questions: What’s your view on the ECX in general; What do you think are the effect of trading through the ECX on specialty coffee exporters and buyers; Is ECX good for coffee growers?
Today, I share my views on the ECX in general as an introduction and to clarify my stance before I raise issues that may easily confuse readers although, to my knowledge, none of the problems I will discuss here are related to or the makings of ECX or Eleni – the person that I admire most and is being celebrated by the PBS documentary on July 22, 2009.
My views on the ECX in general
I think the establishment of the ECX is significant and of a historic proportion.
As I jokingly tell friends, in Ethiopia, major development breakthroughs happen on a periodic cycle of time spanning either 20 or 100 years on average. For example, I listed below a non-exhaustive timeline for Ethiopia’s introduction of the major communication technologies and platforms:
1894 – Postal service started on March 9, 1984 (In 1908, Ethiopia became member of the Universal Postal Union and the first Ethiopian stamps were also printed and sold around this time; in 1936, the General Post Office and two branch offices were established in Addis Ababa as well as thirty-six post offices throughout the country.)
1917 – The first train services from the coast to the capital were inaugurated only in 1917 (A concession for the construction of a railway from the Ethiopian capital to the French Somali port of Djibouti was granted by Menelik as early as March 1894)
1984 – The first extensive open-wire line telecommunication system laid out linking the capital with all the important administrative cities of the country (the Imperial Telecommunications Board of Ethiopia was established by Proclamation 131/53 in 1953)
2008 – The first commodity exchange market established. The person credited for this triumph, Eleni Gebre-Medhin, is featured on this documentary film.
Based on this snapshot of historic timeline, some historians may be tempted to draw conclusions that the establishment of the ECX was overdue by about 4 years because the latest major breakthrough was recorded in 1984 – 24 years prior to the ECX’ formation. I lean towards supporting the argument that it was overdue by over a hundred years.
So, it is my belief and hope that Ethiopians will be grateful for and appreciative of the work done by Eleni and her colleagues for the next many years.
The ECX can play important roles in elevating the agricultural sector’s efficiency, the country’s competitiveness in the global market, and thereby helping the people dig themselves out of the vicious circle of poverty that we are shamefully plagued in.
A transparent and efficient exchange market system nurtures competition and benefits everyone in the value chain. The ECX can help Ethiopia by:
• modernizing the way people do business and improving the marketing channels,
• disseminating market and price information, and
• providing a marketplace where buyers and sellers can come together to trade and be assured of quality, delivery, and payment.
These will have a ripple effect of benefiting everyone in the value chain. Obviously, this cannot be achieved overnight. Transforming a century old gloomy trading system takes time.
I think, the first year of trading coffee through ECX was marred by problems and confusion. While the efforts made by ECX to take on a crop of global importance shortly after its launch is admirable, the strategies it went by to integrate the trade were far from being flawless. From the outset, ECX declared that it aims at creating a national standard commodity coffee classification system; it eliminated direct trade and traceability; and enticed the government to controlling the value chain from farm gate to the border. These changes have had remarkable effects on coffee exporters, buyers, growers, and the coffee sector at large.
I. Homogeneous National Coffee Brand
For a country with millions of poor people, the temptation of utilizing the high paying fewer coffee brands to drive sales and increase the value of the country’s overall coffee production is high. That very thought has played a role in ECX’ decision to homogenize all coffees grown in the same region through a standard commodity classification system.
This is clearly stated in the whitepaper released in April 2009 by the ECX titled: What is in a Bean? ECX and the Specialty Coffee Market. It reads, “We take the strong view that a significant majority of Ethiopian coffees have the potential to be considered fine coffees, and can be sold in the domestic market as such, with appropriate certification. The ECX model not only promotes the specialty coffee segment but also do so in such a way as to benefit the small farmer as well.”
The document does not indicate how ECX’ new system will benefit the small farmers but it stands firm by the assumptions and subsequent conclusions.
“The recent policy decision to include trading of all coffees within the Exchange is based on the strategic thinking that the [following] set of assumptions [is] correct:
1) A significant majority of washed Sidama and Yirgachefe and unwashed Harar could be considered specialty-plus in that they are branded and trademarked and have the potential to meet the fine coffee standards;
2) A significant majority of all Ethiopian coffees have the potential to be considered organic and obtain certification;
3) A significant portion of unwashed coffee can be promoted as forest coffee and/or bird friendly.”
Although these assumptions are based on indisputable facts, they are not exhaustive enough to justify the conclusions drawn by the ECX. The fact that Ethiopia has the potential to increase its coffee qualities to the standards preferred by the global Specialty coffee industry does not give good reason for an immediate homogenization and an automatic upgrade of the classes of the whole coffee production. Ethiopia’s coffee cannot be sold as Specialty coffees only because the country wanted or decided to. In a buyers’ market, such as in the global Specialty coffee trade, unfortunately, the final say is not that of producers’ but the buyers’. Specialty coffee buyers and roasters decide which plot to invest in and which crop to buy.
The alternative is for the country to invest in quality, branding, and slick marketing of its products to set itself apart from the competition and convince buyers. That way, Ethiopia could create the demand and subsequently the market for the coffee brands it wishes to create. This is, however, a daunting task and an expensive venture for Ethiopia, the poorest country in the world. In the absence of these endeavors, countries like Ethiopia are bound to the terms of the global coffee trade, at least for the foreseeable future.
The measures taken by the government to force sell all coffees through the ECX platform and ECX’ decision to standardize the coffee grades into a national brand while, in ECX’ estimation, only about 3.7% of the country’s coffee production qualifies to be branded as a Specialty coffee, may cost the nation dearly. The farmers that are already producing the finest coffees will be the immediate victims of the new system as they are forced to give up the premium prices they are paid by buyers for their exceptional produce. Because, as soon as their coffees are blended with other coffees grown in the same region (in order to boost up the wholesale price for good of the country), these farmers lose their entitlement to the premium status their produce commands. This is unfair to the poor farmers.
Unless the ECX system of trading coffee as a commodity is corrected promptly, in the long term, the strategy risks watering-down the nation’s coffee brands. Such a strategy undermines the superior standards some of the brands earned over the years and the result will be commoditizing the country’s valuable crop.
II. No Direct Trade, No Traceability
Specialty coffee buyers and roasters are puzzled and in panic over the ECX system. The biggest issue for these buyers is the loss of transparency and traceability. They need assurances that the bundle they want is the bundle they will get. The new system does not allow direct trade for single-origin coffee because it promotes the traditional trade relations model where commodity coffee sales is brokered in bulk, thus no traceability. The new system basically lumps together bundles of coffees into a generic class-type-grade combo.
Independent millers who used to buy coffee from farmers, mill it, escort it through the former auction systems, and export it are no longer allowed to do so. They are now required to sell the beans to the ECX, where its origin is lost. The possibility of tracing a bag of coffee to its origins is eliminated in this process. The ECX promises a secure inventory management and a guaranteed warehouse receipts system that ensures “zero delivery default and reduces mixing of coffee origins” during the marketing process. But, as far as buyers are concerned, traceability is lost because there is no way of proving whether the plot they will receive is the one they wanted.
This is remarkable because while the global coffee industry is increasingly moving towards greater transparency of coffee origins, tracing back all the way to individual plots of land, the Ethiopian system is heading in the opposite direction.
III. Government’s Hands in the Bag
The third effect on the exporters and farmers has to do with the government’s intervention.
While it is good that the new exchange system replaced the murky auction centers, unfortunately, it also tempted the government to enter into the market as a major player. Some private businesses are now effectively locked out of the market and, in an unprecedented move, the government has emerged with a strong control over the coffee sector.
In what played out early this year as a reaction to some of the major exporters’ hesitance to sell their coffee stocks at the prevailing prices if sold through the ECX, the government confiscated coffee beans from the exporters and also tasked the state owned profit-making enterprise called Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) with exporting coffee. This crack down on the exporters had a devastating impact on some roasters and their relationship with the country as the country failed to fulfill its contractual agreements during the last harvest season. Also, it raised the question of what else would the government do in the future.
The ECX is currently negotiating with representatives of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and others to resolve this one problem. In the mean time, as the next harvest season approaches, the EGTE appears to be very well positioned to claim the biggest market share in the country’s coffee export.
Domestically, this level of engagement by the government in exporting beans produced by smallholder families is alarming because of the imbalance of power and the obvious conflicts of interest. The government has its influences in almost everything from policy making, distribution of farm inputs, capital, to the land. This is the farthest one can get away from a free market system.
All these affect farmers as their sales volume is directly dependent on the volume sold by exporters.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])
By David McDougall | Globe and Mail
A Canadian citizen imprisoned in Ethiopia for two-and-a-half years, has been convicted by a civilian [kangaroo] court in Addis Ababa on three charges relating to his alleged involvement in an Ethiopian separatist movement.
Bashir Makhtal, a former Toronto resident now in his 40s, is the grandson of one of the founding members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, though he claims he has no connection with the movement.
“He was prepared for it. He was not surprised at all,” said Mr. Makhtal’s lawyer in Ethiopia, Gebreamlak Tekele .
Mr. Makhtal is due to be sentenced on Monday and could face life imprisonment or death, though his lawyer says they plan to appeal the conviction.
Mr. Makhtal was arrested by Kenyan authorities in December, 2006, as he attempted to cross the border from Somalia on a Canadian passport in an effort to escape fighting between Ethiopia and Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts, an Islamist militia.
Mr. Makhtal claims he was in Mogadishu on a business trip, preparing to receive a shipment of used clothing from Dubai.
He was never charged in Kenya. Instead, after several weeks in custody, he was sent to Ethiopia where he essentially disappeared, held incommunicado in solitary confinement and denied consular access for nearly two years.
Pressure from the Canadian government is believed to have helped persuade Ethiopia to give Mr. Makhtal some semblance of a judicial process. But today’s conviction brings to an end a trial that both human rights groups and Mr Makhtal warned would be unfair.
“It’s been a foregone conclusion,” said Lorne Waldman, the Toronto lawyer retained by Mr. Makhtal’s family to represent his case in Canada. “Any independent observer knows that the judicial system in Ethiopia is not independent.”
“The key issue for us now is whether the Canadian government will take appropriate steps to ensure that he is repatriated.”
