“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the English novelist and poet. It looks like the U.S. of A is really in a pickle tangled in a web of lies, deceit and diplomatic chicanery about its role and involvement in the 2006 invasion of Somalia by the dictator in Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi. The truth about the “fantastic Somalia job” (invasion), as the crown prince of Abu Dhabi called it, is now coming to light in the diplomatic cables acquired by Wikileaks, the organization dedicated to publishing sensitive documents from anonymous sources and whistleblowers. David Axe (Wired.com) citing Wikileaks cables last week argued that the U.S. had actually hired Zenawi to “do its dirty work” in Somalia. Axe wrote[1]:
It was an off-hand compliment during a January 2007 dinner [the month following Zenawi’s full scale invasion of Somalia] meeting between Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, plus staff, and then-U.S. Central Commander boss General John Abizaid…. ‘The Somalia job was fantastic,’ Al Nahyan interjected… At the time of Al Nahyan’s comment, the dust was just settling from Ethiopia’s Blitzkrieg-style assault toward Mogadishu. Some 50,000 Ethiopian troops… had cut a bloody swath through the lightly-armed forces of the Islamic Courts Union…. Washington certainly had a motive to get involved in Somalia… Already with two escalating wars on its own plate, the U.S. was in no position to openly lead its own large-scale attack on Somalia. It’d have been far simpler to simply sponsor somebody else to do the dirty work. Enter Ethiopia…. All the same, evidence was mounting that the U.S. had played a leading role in the Ethiopian invasion. Journalists only strongly suspected it, but Abu Dhabi prince Al Nayhan apparently knew it for certain, if his praise of “the Somalia job” was any indication…. Today, U.S. Special Forces continue to target terrorists in Somalia. There are arguably more of them than ever, thanks in part to the botched Ethiopian invasion. ‘We’ve made a lot of mistakes and Ethiopia’s entry in 2006 was not a really good idea,’ U.S. diplomat Donald Yamamoto said in March.
Blowback and Plausible Deniability
There appear to be two parallel cover stories invented from the beginning to explain U.S. involvement (and alternatively, non-involvement) in Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia. The first story is that Zenawi presented the U.S. a fait accompli (done deal) to invade Somalia. The U.S. advised against such an invasion but reluctantly supported it after it became clear that Zenawi’s decision was irreversible. The second is what may be called “throw-Zenawi-under-the-bus” story. If there is a blowback on the U.S. from Zenawi’s invasion because of high civilian casualties, other humanitarian disasters or prolonged stalemate, the U.S. could simply dump the entire blame on Zenawi and claim plausible deniability. In other words, “Zenawi did it on his own. The U.S. had nothing to do with it. The U.S. advised him not to invade. Blame Zenawi.” The straight story is that the U.S. not only supported the invasion but was actually snagged into supporting the invasion by the clever, calculating and cunning Zenawi.
The available evidence suggests that Zenawi had been spinning his own web of deceit and lies to entangle the U.S. in a Horn war in 2006 for two purposes: 1) to ingratiate himself with the U.S. and panhandle for more aid handouts, and 2) effectively deflect criticism of his miserable human rights record in the aftermath of the stolen May 2005 elections. In the run up to the Somali invasion, Zenawi was facing withering criticism and condemnation for his massive repression, massacres of hundreds of unarmed protesters and jailing of nearly all the opposition leaders, independent newspaper publishers, civic society leaders and human rights advocates in the country. By the Spring of 2006, an unprecedented bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to Zenawi unless he improved his human rights record. Zenawi clearly understood that significant American support was essential for the very survival of his repressive regime. Zenawi was also keenly aware of American obsession, fixation and preoccupation with Al Qaeda in the Horn. Zenawi calculated that if he could seduce and snag the U.S. in an invasion of Somalia by presenting himself as an “Al Qaeda Hunter in the Horn”, he could have the best of all possible worlds. He could make best friends for life with the U.S. and forever forestall any actions that could result in a cutoff of U.S. aid to his regime or other unpleasant diplomatic pressure.
The evidence suggests that to accomplish this objective Zenawi concocted “false intelligence” to entice the U.S. into supporting his invasion of Somalia by essentially sounding the siren call that will always catch America’s attention: “The Jihadists are coming!!!” On June 6, 2006, six months before the full-scale invasion that led to the siege of Mogadishu and one month before a small contingent of Zenawi’s troops were sent to defend the Somali “Transitional Federal Government” (TGF) in Baidoa, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen, who incidentally facilitated Zenawi’s takeover of power in Ethiopia in May 1991, shared an illuminating and well-informed insight:
Also, there are friends in the region, like the Ethiopians, who probably are feeding false intelligence about terrorists being hidden and that sort of thing, because the Ethiopians are deadly afraid of Moslem control and also they have their own Moslem problem among the Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia. So they want to keep the Islamists out of power, and they will bring the U.S. into it, if they can.
By early Summer of 2006, former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who advised the U.S. Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Political Affairs on African matters, was quietly working behind the scenes to facilitate the invasion of Somalia and spinning a web of lies and deception to conceal the nature of U.S. involvement. By mid-July 2006, the die had been cast and the initial invasion of Somalia had occurred when Zenawi deployed a contingent of his troops to prop up the TGF. In the preceding weeks, Frazer was priming the diplomatic circles and mollifying world public opinion by claiming that while the U.S. does not support an invasion of Somalia, it will not allow the “disintegration” of the TGF by jihadists and will “rally” to support Zenawi if he were to invade.[2]:
A confidential UN cable obtained by Human Rights Watch indicates that in a conversation with UN officials in June 2006, US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer noted that the situation in Somalia was ‘uncertain.’ According to the notes, she presented the view that Eritrea had stepped over the line and that Ethiopia viewed Eritrean action in Somalia ‘as tantamount to opening a second front against Ethiopia.’ Dr. Frazer’s best-case scenario was that the ICU and TFG would engage in dialogue; the worst-case scenario was the expansion of the ICU throughout Somalia and the disintegration of the TFG. Dr. Frazer noted that the latter scenario would have a major negative impact in the Horn and that the US and IGAD would not allow it. She allegedly expressed the view that while the US feared an Ethiopian intervention could rally ‘foreign elements,’ the US would rally with Ethiopia if the ‘Jihadists’ took over.
By mid-December 2006, less than two weeks before Zenawi fully unleashed his “blitzkrieg” on Somalia and rumbled into Mogadishu, Fraser was setting the propaganda stage to convince the world that jihadists were provoking an Ethiopian attack. The N.Y. Times reported on December 14, 2006, that Frazer “said that diplomatic and intelligence officials believed that the Islamists could be trying to provoke an Ethiopian attack as a ‘rallying cry for support’ to their side.” On December 27, 2006, just as Zenawi’s troops were storming through the desert to Mogadishu after capturing the strategic town of Jowhar ninety miles to the north, the U.S. State Department endorsed the invasion by declaring that Islamist forces were creating “genuine security concerns” for Ethiopia. U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said: “Ethiopia has genuine security concerns with regard to developments in Somalia and has provided support at the request of the legitimate governing authority, the Transitional Federal institutions.”
All along, the U.S. had been working quietly with Zenawi providing training and military aid in manifest anticipation of the Somalia invasion. The invasion deal was sealed on December 4, 2006, when General John Abizaid, Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), met with Zenawi in Addis Ababa on what was billed as a “courtesy call to an ally”. Following Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia three weeks later, it became clear that the “courtesy call” was actually “the final handshake” to go forward with a full scale invasion[3]. On January 8, 2007, a little over a week after Zenawi’s troops had triumphantly captured Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, U.S.A. TODAY reported[4] :
The U.S. and Ethiopian militaries have ‘a close working relationship,’ Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said. The ties include intelligence sharing, arms aid and training that gives the Ethiopians ‘the capacity to defend their borders and intercept terrorists and weapons of mass destruction,‘ he said. There are about 100 U.S. military personnel currently working in Ethiopia, Carpenter said.
Two weeks earlier on December 24, 2006, as heavy shelling and air strikes were directed at “jihadist” forces in border areas and the town of Beledweyne was being bombarded, Zenawi had described his decision to invade Somalia using almost the same words as the Pentagon. In a televised address Zenawi said, “Ethiopian defense forces were forced to enter into war to the protect the sovereignty of the nation and to blunt repeated attacks by Islamic courts terrorists and anti-Ethiopian elements they are supporting.”
By August 2007, Zenawi’s troops were bogged down in Somalia and the human cost was proving to be horrendous: Tens of thousands of civilians had died and over 870,000 Somalis had been forced to flee their homes in Mogadishu alone. By then, Somalia could only be described as “as one of the worst humanitarian situations in Africa.” The U.S. could see a huge blowback heading its way; it was time to take cover. Fraser did not blink once when she threw Zenawi under the bus. She said it was all Zenawi’s fault. On September 6, 2007, TIME Magazine reported[5]:
But, as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has said, Washington opposed the invasion of Somalia. ‘We urged the Ethiopian military not to go into Somalia,’ said Frazer last month. ‘They did so because of their own national-security interests.’ This version of events, contrary to a common perception that the invasion was backed or even initiated by the U.S., is supported by accounts of a November 2006 meeting in Addis between Meles and the then head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid. Sources from both sides relate that Abizaid told Meles he was ‘not allowed’ to invade Somalia, adding Somalia would become ‘Ethiopia’s Iraq.’ (An official in Washington disputes the precise language, but confirms the essence of the discussion.
Fraser repeated the same story line on February 12, 2008, when she told Newsweek Magazine[6]:
We told them [Ethiopia] that they should not go in. Once they went in absolutely we had to try to assist them and the [Somali] transitional federal government, which had invited them in. We support the transitional federal government and its decision to ask the Ethiopians to assist them.
The web of lies and deception had come to a complete circle in late 2007, and the “fantastic Somalia job” had managed to create a grotesque theater of death and destruction throughout Somalia.
The Jihadists Are Coming!
As many of my readers are aware, I have written extensively on the illegal invasion of Somalia on a number of occasions. I will reference three columns that I wrote on the issue. On November 28, 2006, a month before Zenawi’s tanks “blitzkrieged” their way into Mogadishu, I wrote a column entitled, “The Jihadists are Coming!”, arguing that Zenawi had fabricated the Somali jihadist threat to deflect attention from his dismal human rights record and repression and to buy the good will and diplomatic support of the U.S.[7]:
But the whole jihadist business smacks of political fantasy. It’s surreal. Mr. Zenawi says the Somali jihadists and their Al Qaeda partners should be opposed and defeated because they are undemocratic, anti-democratic, oppressive and authoritarian. The jihadists don’t believe in human rights and do not allow political or social dissent. They are fanatics who want to impose one-party rule, and do not believe in a democracy where the people elect their representatives. Duh!!! Has Mr. Zenawi looked at the mirror lately?
On October 2, 2008, in a column entitled, “The End of Pax Zenawi in Somalia”, I questioned whether the military effort to impose “Zenawi’s Peace” on the Somali people had finally collapsed[8]:
The situation in Somalia has turned Code Red. Things are deteriorating very fast for Zenawi’s troops. The Al-Shabaab “jihadists” have taken over Southern Somalia, and are ravenously eyeing Mogadishu. It is no longer “hit-and-run” guerrilla warfare. It is capture-and-stay…. Zenawi’s forces are in full “strategic retreat” to Mogadishu. After nearly two years of intervention and occupation of Somalia, there are no signs of success; and an anniversary of total failure in the quicksand of Somalia awaits Zenawi this coming December. Could this be the end of Pax Zenawi in Somalia?
On November 3, 2008, I followed up with another column entitled, “The 843-Day War”, based on a systematic content analysis of Zenawi’s public statements, and laid out the intricately fabricated sophistry Zenawi had used to justify his invasion of Somalia. I concluded:
It appears Zenawi completely underestimated the insurgents and the Somali people and overestimated the military prowess of his troops. He really did not know the Somalis as much as he thought he knew them. He underestimated their resolve to fight a force that had invaded and occupied their country.
Unmitigated Catastrophe in Somalia
Perhaps there is nothing surprising about disclosures of use of deceit and trumped-up intelligence by the Bush Administration to justify a proxy preemptive attack on a shattered nation that presented no credible threat to the United States. The tragedy is that by the time Zenawi had announced his decision to pull out his troops by December 2008, Somalia had become an “unmitigated catastrophe.” According to Human Rights Watch:
In 2008 the human rights and humanitarian situation in Somalia deteriorated into unmitigated catastrophe. Several thousand civilians have been killed in fighting. More than one million Somalis are now displaced from their homes and thousands flee across the country’s borders every month. Mogadishu, a bustling city of 1.2 million people in 2006, has seen more than 870,000 of its residents displaced by the armed conflict.
Someone, someday will be held accountable for all of the crimes against humanity, and the Almighty committed in Somalia.
The fact of the matter is that Zenawi would never invade Somalia except with the blessing and full support of the U.S. He is too cunning, too calculating and too sly to invade Somalia all by himself and at the explicit and strong disapproval of the U.S., as it has been claimed by Frazer. It is interesting to note that the U.S. has never condemned Zenawi’s invasion of Somalia, despite protestations that the U.S. had strongly advised against invasion and warned Zenawi that “Somalia would be Ethiopia’s Iraq.” Suffice it to say that the story of the Somali invasion of 2006 is akin to two spiders spinning their webs to entangle each other and suddenly found themselves in the middle of a hornet’s nest.
On March 12, 2010, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Yamamoto said, “We’ve made a lot of mistakes and Ethiopia’s entry in 2006 was not a really good idea.” He did not clarify the nature of the “mistakes”. Could it be that it was “not a really good idea” because the U.S. was exposed as a not-so-silent partner in the outsourced invasion of Somalia? Or could it be that it was a mistake because the hired gun botched the Somalia job? Perhaps the U.S. still supports Zenawi to the hilt because he did and continues to do such a “fantastic job in Somalia”.
As they say, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.” Well, it looks like Wikileaks is slowly lifting the curtain on the funny business the U.S. and Zenawi have been doing in the dark all these years.
RELEASE ALL ETHIOPIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.
[1] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/wikileaked-cable-confirms-u-s-secret-somalia-op/
[2] See “Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu,” Human Rights Watch, Vol. 19, 12(a), August 2007, p. 22, fn. 63.
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/13/alqaida.usa
[4] http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-07-ethiopia_x.htm
[5] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659389,00.html#ixzz173rg1uwr
[6] http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/11/fragile-institutions.html
[7] http://almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/2006/11/jihadists-are-coming.html
[8] http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=6175
[9] http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/6041
[10] Human Rights Watch, “So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia,” December 2008, p.19
I often write about the trials and tribulations of Ethiopia’s independent journalists, sometimes in tones of lamentation[1], other times in wistful philosophical reflection[2]. I have always defended the constitutional and human rights of Ethiopian citizens “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through other media of their choice.”[3] Unfortunately, I have had few opportunities to publicly celebrate and express my pride in the extraordinary deeds of Ethiopia’s emerging young and courageous journalists.
Courage, it seems, is fast becoming the common middle name for many young Ethiopian journalists. They are certainly racking up some of the most prestigious international journalism awards for courage. It is a special privilege for me to write a few words in honor of Ethiopian journalist Dawit Kebede and his young colleagues at Awramba Times (AT) and congratulate them for being the recipients of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) “2010 International Press Freedom Award”. This annual award is given to journalists who have shown extraordinary courage in defending press freedom in the face of attacks, threats or imprisonment. On November 23, Dawit, barely 30 years old, will accept the CPJ award on behalf of Team Awramba Times and all independent Ethiopian journalists who are still suffering and struggling in Ethiopia and others who have been forced into exile.
I am also privileged to congratulate another courageous young journalist, Sisay Agena, a former political prisoner and erstwhile publisher of Ethiop and Abay newspapers, for receiving the prestigious “Freedom to Write Award” from PEN Center USA. He will be honored in absentia on November 17 in Los Angeles. Last year this award was given to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese writer and human rights advocate and the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The PEN award honors exceptional international literary figures who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising and defending the right to freedom of expression.
In October 2007, another young journalist, Serkalem Fasil, received the prestigious “Courage in Journalism Award” given by the International Womens’ Media Foundation to women journalists that have shown extraordinary bravery in the face of danger. Serkalem and her husband Eskinder Nega, (both former political prisoners and publishers of Menelik, Asqual and Satenaw newspapers) today serve as the personifications of journalistic courage and integrity in Ethiopia. This past March, the Supreme Kangaroo Kourt of Ethiopia ordered Serkalem, Eskinder, Sisay and two other journalists, Zekarias Tesfaye and Fasil Yenealem, to pay the largest fines assessed against journalists in Ethiopian history. These journalists have been denied licenses to publish their newspapers for the past three years.
Dawit Kebede, a former political prisoner, and his young team at Awramba Times are part of a new breed of courageous young journalists in Ethiopia who continue to risk their lives and livelihoods every day to speak truth to power by exercising their constitutional and human rights to free expression. The members of Team Awramba Times, like the other independent journalists, do not hide behind clever pen names or concealed identities to do their work. They are always out there in the line of fire facing intimidation, threats on their lives, harassment, interrogations and imprisonment. I take this opportunity to single out and honor, congratulate and thank each and every member of Team Awramba Times: Fitsum Mamo, editor-in-chief and one of the founders of AT (and not long ago a victim of trumped up charges of defamation of state-appointed church head Paulos); Woubshet Taye (forced to resign on the eve of election in May 2010 following official threats); Gizaw Legesse, deputy editor-in-chief; Wosenseged Gebrekidan (a former political prisoner with Dawit Kebede and the others); Abel Alemayehu, senior editor; Elais Gebru and Surafel Girma, senior reporters; Tigist Wondimu (arts and entertainment editor), Abebe Tola and Solomon Moges, columnists; Nebyou Mesfin, graphics editor; Teshale Seifu, Sisay Getnet, Teshale Wodaj, marketing and advertising and Mekdes Fisaha, computer technologist.
Dawit is the managing editor of Awramba Times. If one were to ask him to describe himself, he would simply say he is journalist. He will say he is not “in the opposition”. He is not a politician. He is not partisan to any political party or ideology; but like his AT colleagues, he is uncompromisingly partial to the truth. He will not hesitate to report or write the truth regardless of who is in power. He will solemnly promise to continue to do his job as a professional journalist by exercising his constitutional and human rights for as long as he can given the intensity of press repression in Ethiopia.
The State of Press Freedom in Ethiopia Today
When I wrote “The Art of War on Ethiopia’s Independent Press”[4] last December, I argued that the regime of Meles Zenawi is conducting a search and destroy mission to completely wipe out the free press in the country. The history of the independent press in Ethiopia over the past five years is a chronicle of brutal crackdowns, arbitrary imprisonments and harassment of local and international journalists, shuttering of newspapers and jamming of international radio transmissions. In May 2009, the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFPJA) reported: “Over 101 journalists are forced into exile, 11 are still facing serious plight in Kenya, Uganda, Yemen, Japan and India… Journalists Serkalem Fasil, Eskindir Nega and Sisay Agena are still denied press licenses. Editors of weeklies: Awramba Times, Harambe, Enku and Addis Neger are suffering under frequent harassments and the new punitive press law, which has become the tool of silencing any criticisms against the ruling party.”
Zenawi like all depraved dictators preceding him fears and loathes the independent press more than anything else. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France expressed his deepest fears of the press when he said: “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” In Ethiopia, that could be translated as “one journalist is to be feared more than a thousand soldiers (‘ke shee toregna, ande gazetegna’). The informative powers of an independent press are so awesome that dictators and tyrants in history have lived in constant fear of having their crimes discovered by the press and reported to the people. As Napoleon explained: “A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns and a tutor of nations.” It was the fact of “tutoring nations” — teaching, informing, enlightening and empowering the people with knowledge– that drove Napoleon “bat crazy”. He hated the press passionately because they exposed his vast network of spies that had penetrated every nook and cranny of French society and his failed military adventures. They relentlessly condemned his indiscriminate massacres of unarmed French citizens protesting in the streets and his killing, jailing and persecution of his political opponents.
Zenawi is no different. He wants to crush the few struggling independent newspapers in the country for the exact same reasons Napoleon wanted to crush the press. For Zenawi, the independent press is the mirror of truth that shows and tells it like it is. Whenever Zenawi looks into the press mirror, he asks the same old proverbial question: “Mirror, mirror on the wall/ Who in the land is the cruelest and wickedest of all?” The independent press is always there to answer that question for him truthfully. Zenawi fears and abhors criticism because he can’t handle the truth. His problem is that in the new breed of Ethiopian journalists he is facing his worst nightmare: the truth in the hands, hearts and minds of the youth. These young journalists have captured the hopes and aspirations of the millions of the young people in the country (which represent nearly 70 percent of the population). The youth armed with the truth and united can never be defeated!
Zenawi has used the “law” to crush these young journalists in much the same way as other dictatorships have crushed the free press in history. When the Nazis decreed the “National Press Law” in October 1933, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels crowed that the “law is the most modern journalistic statute in the world! I predict that its principles will be adopted by the other nations of the world within the next seven years. It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion!” Another decree known as the Law Guaranteeing a Peace of Right was proclaimed immediately after the press law imposing the death penalty on anyone who imports, publishes or distributes in Germany “treasonable articles” and 5 years for importing, publishing or distributing “atrocity stories” about the Nazis or “endangering public security and order.”
Back in April 2008, in a Newsweek interview, Zenawi triumphantly declared that his new press law “will be on par with the best in the world.” His “law” provided: “Whosoever writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicises, disseminates, shows, makes to be heard any promotional statements encouraging… terrorist acts is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 10 to 20 years.” Dr. Goebbels’ press laws are still alive and well 75 years after he introduced them in Germany. This is proof that history never repeats itself; it just finds a new theatre to play itself out.
Knowledge Will Forever Govern Ignorance
Zenawi lives to control everything around him. He has been pretty successful in monopolizing political power by wiping out the opposition. He controls the economy by controlling aid handouts and cornering the lucrative international panhandling business. He controls the daily lives of the people with fear and intimidation. But there are two things he has been unable to control: Ideas and the minds of the people. It is not for lack of effort. Zenawi has tried to control the flow of ideas by shuttering newspapers, jamming radio stations, filtering websites, jailing and harassing journalists and intimidating the people from expressing themselves. But he has not been able to control the flow of ideas or the minds of the people. No one can do that. A good leader inspires with sound ideas and lofty ideals. She encourages the people to freely shop in the marketplace of ideas. To play such a role, a leader needs to have vision, insight, foresight, hindsight, the ability to “look at things the way they are, and ask why” and the courage to “dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” A man blinded by hatred can have no vision. He can only think and ask, “How can I can make things so crooked and so warped that they can never, ever be straightened out again.” A man with no vision lives in darkness and ignorance. As the father the American Constitution James Madison advised: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.” It is the free press, “the tutor of nations”, that will help the people gain the knowledge they need to govern ignorance.
Kudos to All Independent Ethiopian Journalists
Ethiopia’s young independent journalists are fighting the armies of darkness against overwhelming odds. The Dawits, Serkalems, Sisays, Eskinders and all the rest man the frontlines with nothing more in their hands than pens, pencils and keyboards. They fight with the written word to inform and educate citizens and help them find ways to effectively participate in their own governance. I admire these young journalists for doing something that has never been done in the history of press freedom in Ethiopia. They have taught us by personal example what it takes to defend freedom of expression. They are inventing for us a new culture of free expression, societal openness, official accountability and transparency in Ethiopia. They are developing a style of journalism based on truth-searching, truth-telling and exposition of lies costumed as truth. They keep the candle of liberty flickering in the darkness of oppression.
I believe all independent journalists in Ethiopia are bonded together by a common cause of press freedom. They suffer the slings and arrows of a vindictive dictatorship together; they fight together, they rise and fall together and in the end they win or lose together. The CPJ, PEN USA and IWMF awards honor all of them. As we celebrate these young journalists, we should remember what it is all about: Press freedom in Ethiopia is not about protecting the rights of newspapers, editors, journalists, reporters or foreign correspondents and radio broadcasters. It is quintessentially about the right of every Ethiopian citizen “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers and without interference.” Zenawi believes that by keeping Ethiopians in darkness his regime and hangers-on will thrive on forever. He needs to borrow a cup of wisdom. Only three things thrive and propagate rapidly in darkness: mushrooms, hate and anger. Mushrooms proliferate in dark caves; hatred and anger mushroom and smolder in the hearts and minds of men and women who are oppressed and subjugated. Let Zenawi ask himself these questions: What happens to hate and anger deferred, to paraphrase a poetic line of Langston Hughes? Do they just sag like a heavy load, or do they explode?
LET ETHIOPIANS “SEEK, RECEIVE AND IMPART INFORMATION AND IDEAS OF ALL KINDS, REGARDLESS OF FRONTIERS.”
RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.
[1] http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61056
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-information-with_b_551428.html
[3] http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63303
[4] See fn. 1
Last week, it was quietly announced that the official wholesale ban on distance learning educational programs in Ethiopia has been lifted. In August 2010, the ban was imposed out of the blue “because of quality concerns”. According to one report[1], following six-weeks of “negotiations” between education officials and distance learning service providers a settlement was reached in which providers reportedly agreed to create a curriculum that places more emphasis on science and technology and establish a trade association to oversee quality assurance. Education officials are expected to undertake stricter supervision and monitoring of distance learning institutions. The training of teachers and health care workers, and apparently legal education, will be reserved exclusively for public higher education institutions under the political control of the regime.
Doing the Right Thing
When I wrote my commentary “Ethiopia: Indoctri-Nation” this past September[2], I argued that the wholesale ban of private distance learning programs by “directive”, or more accurately by bureaucratic fiat, was a flagrant violation of the governing law known as the “Higher Education Proclamation No. 650/2009” [‘Proclamation’] and the constitutional property rights of the providers. I demonstrated that the responsible regulatory agency known as the “Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency” (HERQA) could only “revoke accreditation” of private distance learning institutions which fails to meet “minimum standards” on a case-by-case basis following a fact-finding and appeals process. It does not have the legal authority to impose a wholesale ban.
The reasons reported publicly for the “negotiated agreement” lifting the ban are not convincing in light of the provisions of the Proclamation. HERQA has broad regulatory authority to “ensure the minimum curricula quality standards”. It does not need to “negotiate” its own legal authority to demand accountability and observance of standards from substandard providers; it could simply commence de-accreditation procedures against them. Instead of imposing a wholesale ban, the prudent and sensible thing for HERQA would have been to notify distance learning stakeholders of deficiencies, consulted with them on remedies and instituted stricter accountability and quality control measures with increased oversight and monitoring. Those who fail to cure deficiencies within a reasonable time could be set for a “de-accreditation” hearing. Inexplicably, HERQA officials and the political bosses in charge of education acted rashly and arbitrarily in August; now they have been forced to turn back the clock because the total ban has proven to be impractical and irrational to implement and has made the ruling regime in Ethiopia the laughing stock of higher education throughout the world.
As I have demonstrated in my commentary referenced above, the blanket ban on distance learning was wrong because it imposed collective punishment on all members of a group without an opportunity to be heard and a fair determination of the facts. The ban also unfairly smeared all distance program providers in the country as sub-standard, and maligned the leaders of these institutions as scammers in light of comments by officials which insinuated that the “purpose [of the providers] was to collect money” and not provide legitimate educational services. It is impossible to imagine that all distance learning providers in the country are so deficient in quality that they needed to be shut down at once. If that were true, it would be a sad commentary on those officials responsible for education in the country for allowing such institutions to function as they have for so many years. Imposing the ban in August was wrong; righting that wrong by lifting the ban now (assuming that it is actually lifted and is not merely a public relations gimmick) is a testament to education itself: “All humans make mistakes, but only the wise ones learn from them.”
Lessons Learned
Educational bureaucrats and their political bosses in Ethiopia could learn a few lessons from the blanket ban fiasco. First, it is important for them to incorporate the principle of the rule of law in their official actions. Simply stated, they could act only to the extent that they have constitutional and statutory authority. They cannot act arbitrarily or abuse their power because they occupy a political position. The ban was manifestly the result of lack of knowledge or willful ignorance of the applicable law by officials in charge of educational policy-making and implementation. Had these officials familiarized themselves with their governing Proclamation, it would have been self-evident to them that they have to follow the prescribed de-accreditations procedures and could not impose a total ban. They need to institutionalize and practice the principle of the rule of law as part of their bureaucratic culture which will help them perform their duties with high degree of accountability, transparency and efficiency.
The second lesson to be learned is that to avoid the type of mindless and irrational policymaking, the political bosses in charge of education should establish a standardized notice-and-comment process before proposed regulations are implemented. By publicly announcing a proposed rule change in advance, impacted institutions, groups, communities and members of the general public would be given an opportunity to provide input and share their views on their special circumstances. They could also provide policymakers data and analysis to help in the formulation of policies that are balanced, efficacious and likely to be implemented successfully. Such a process avoids hasty consideration of issues, premature and uninformed judgments, embarrassing decisions and obviates the need for the futile pursuit of impractical policies as evidenced in this ban.
To be sure, if the education officials had followed a notice-and-comment process, not only would distance learning service providers, teachers, students and their parents and others have had the opportunity to contribute positively to the policy process, the officials themselves could have spared themselves public embarrassment, avoided wasting time negotiating something the needed no negotiation and quite possibly avoid legal challenges to the ban. A notice-and-comment process also promotes accountability, transparency and public engagement in the policy process consistent with the prescription in Article 12 of the Ethiopian Constitution (Functions and Accountability of Government) which provides: “The activities of government shall be undertaken in a manner which is open and transparent to the public.” What better way to practically implement Article 12 than instituting an open notice-and-comment process?
A third lesson to be learned is that in higher education it is vital to maintain ongoing consultations with the stakeholders. Higher education is not the military high command where random and arbitrary orders are given to be followed unquestioningly. Having served in a leadership position in higher education strategic planning and implementation and overseen the development of a specialized distance learning program, I know it is counter-productive to even consider imposing bureaucratic control on curriculum, faculty, staff, students and administrators. Systematic and ongoing consultations with stakeholders are essential for a successful distance learning program design, planning, implementation, evaluation, maintenance and improvement. Quality concerns in distance learning are not limited to “ensuring minimum standards” as it seems to be the concern of educational officials in Ethiopia; there is the whole other area of student achievement and learning outcomes which can be tackled only by identifying student needs, problems and barriers students encounter in obtaining educational services. Without a comprehensive approach, the efforts to ensure minimum standards in the long run will amount to nothing more than window dressing.
The need for ongoing consultations with stakeholders needs emphasis. When HERQA suddenly announced the ban, distance learning providers, teachers and students at these institutions were shocked to find out that such a catastrophic policy had been made without even the courtesy of notice, let alone consultations with them as stakeholders. Molla Tsegaye, president of Admas University College, expressed shock and dismay when he learned about the ban: “We did not expect this. As stakeholders in the sector, we should have been consulted before all this.” Consultation is a process in which the concerned parties confer to share views, exchange ideas and give advice. Negotiation is a process in which the parties have issues which they seek to settle in a formal agreement. Both the providers and the educational bureaucrats and their political bosses are presumably on the same side. They are both manifestly interested and committed to educational quality and student learning. Consultations, not negotiations, are more appropriate and efficacious to increase program quality and student achievement. If Ethiopia’s distance education providers are collectively failing in providing quality instruction, they should be presented with the data of sub-par performance and engaged as stakeholders to develop guidelines for best practices.
The fourth lesson to be learned is the need to de-politicize education. Education bureaucrats and their political bosses should respect principles of academic freedom in higher education and let students, faculty members, scholars and researchers have the freedom to teach, learn or communicate ideas without being targeted for repression, job loss and other retribution. Higher educational institutions, and schools in general, should not be places of indoctrination for the ruling party’s true believers. The legal, teaching and health professions should not be the exclusive domain of public institutions that are funded and completely controlled by the regime and its top leaders. Academic merit and freedom, and excellence in instructional quality should be the governing principles for higher education in Ethiopia, not party membership, party loyalty or party influence.
The fifth and most important lesson for the political bosses that orchestrated this fiasco is to publicly come out and say, “We made a mistake. We messed up. We acted rashly and without forethought when we imposed a wholesale ban! We will consult stakeholders in the future and solicit input from the public to ensure a transparent process; and we will act only to the extent that we have authority under the law.” There is nothing more important for the public than to have officials taking ownership of their mistakes. No reasonable person would disagree with efforts aimed at weeding out diploma mills and fly-by-night operations. No one would protest efforts aimed at protecting the public from educational fraud. The solution to these problem is not to throw out the baby with the bath water by imposing a total ban on distance learning, but to remove the rotten apples from the barrel. With the un-banning of distance learning, stakeholders, bureaucrats and their political bosses could begin a new chapter and go beyond setting “minimum standards” to setting a “gold standard” of best practices in distance learning not only for Ethiopia but also the African continent.
Reflections of an Education “Neo-Liberal”
In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess my own predilections and preferences in higher education having spent much of my professional life in the university environment. I proudly advocate a laissez faire approach to higher education. That makes me an educational “neoliberal” (a word often used pejoratively by some benighted dogmatists, which I simply define as one who believes in a totally free marketplace of ideas undefiled by bureaucratic and regulatory vulgarity) who upholds the individual’s right to choose his/her own educational program and professional career. Well, get a load of this: “Hell, Yeah! I am an Educational Neo-Liberal and Damn Proud it!” As a “neo-liberal”, I believe in freedom of inquiry and thought. I am always willing to entertain new ideas with inquisitiveness and fascination, not fear and anxiety.
There are those destined to the dustbin of history who have argued that “the neo-liberal paradigm is a dead end, is incapable of bringing about the African renaissance, and that a fundamental shift in paradigm is required to bring about the African renaissance.” I say the only paradigm shift self-serving, pretentious, narcissistic and megalomaniacal dictators could bring is to march the “Dark Continent” backwards to the Dark Ages. It was the Renaissance European universities that led the scientific revolution and became the incubators of new ideas in science, literature, philosophy, art, politics, science and religion. Closing institutions of higher learning and banning fields of scientific and philosophical inquiry were the hallmarks of the Dark Ages, not the Renaissance.
My belief is that government regulation of education rarely results in quality improvement or student achievement. The maze of bureaucratic rules and regulations imposed by governments often stifle creativity, learning and the expansion of knowledge. Africa’s “renaissance” or rebirth is in the hands of its young people yearning to breathe free and struggling to exert their creative impulses to lift the continent out of poverty and dictatorship. There can be no renaissance when an official orthodoxy is forced upon citizens and the state mindlessly meddles in the marketplace of ideas and knowledge with a heavy hand. Suffice it to say that I believe in a free marketplace of ideas (universities) where students, teachers, researchers and scholars do not have to seek knowledge under the long shadow of official censors or look over their shoulders for the thought police lurking behind every bush on campus. As to the cultural role played by private higher educational institutions, could anyone doubt the enormous contributions of private universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins and dozens more in America’s “renaissance”?
In the marketplace of ideas and knowledge, I say keep government out. Let individuals decide what they want and need. If students feel a private distance education program meets their needs, it should be their choice and not the decision of faceless, nameless and capricious bureaucrats. It is all about freedom of choice. In a free society, every citizen can choose his/her educational destiny. If one chooses to become an educator, a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, a chemist or train to join any other profession, it is their right to pursue it particularly when they are paying for it out of their own pockets. Only totalitarian states mandate what each citizen will learn and become.
The whole idea of state monopoly in teacher education, health and the law is deeply offensive to anyone who believes in freedom of learning and education. In my September commentary referenced above, I noted: “State-certified teachers who are ruling party members could be used to play a decisive role in legitimizing the regime and in indoctrinating the youth in the regime’s ideology.” Human Rights Watch two weeks ago supported my observation with evidence that the ruling regime in Ethiopia had misused state educational facilities for political purposes and engaged in systematic political indoctrination of students and repression of teachers. [3]
As a lawyer and educator, I am particularly concerned about state monopoly over legal education. By monopolizing the law discipline, the ruling regime manifestly intends to regulate the admission of law students and the training of lawyers and judges who will administer “justice” in the country. Such a monopoly will produce not lawyers and legal professionals who are committed to the Constitution, the rule of law, principles of universal justice and ethical standards, but robotic legal cadres committed to the ruling regime and its policies. In other words, justice will be administered by party hacks, hirelings, flunkies and lackeys with ultimate loyalty to the dictator-in-chief. I am a proud “neoliberal” in education because I believe “education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army”; better yet, the best defense against an army of ignoramuses.
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.
The great American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote: “All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken. …” On October 6, 2010, Birtukan Midekssa, Ethiopia’s First Daughter, also headed home from nearly two years of captivity to the loves of her life, the ones she was forced to forsake, her daughter Hal’le, her long-suffering septuagenarian mother and 80 million of her countrymen and women who prayed and waited to see her walk free. It will be an October to remember.
The Stockholm Syndrome
Dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi says he freed Birtukan because she asked for a “pardon”; and “pardon” he did in “words that are like a cloud of winged snakes,” to quote Percy Bysshe Shelley, drifting aloft a sea of lies, damned lies and total fabrications. The history of the law is replete with monstrous examples of false confessions: innocent individuals victimized into admitting atrocious crimes under duress, torture, threat of violence to themselves or loved ones, diminished capacity induced by extreme psychological and physical deprivation or mental impairment induced by prolonged and harsh solitary confinement or by trickery and deception.
Prisoners can be brainwashed to say anything by those who control them. Prisoners who have endured torture, extreme degradation and abuse have been known to do shocking things to please their captors and ease their own pain and suffering. Abused prisoners have been known to deceive themselves into believing the cruelty of their captors as acts of kindness. It is called the “Stockholm Syndrome”. When the victim is under the total and complete control of her captor for her basic needs of survival and her very existence, she will say and do anything to please her captor. The victim will comply with any command or demand of her captor just to survive and remain sane, and not self-destruct by giving in to the terror and rage she feels for her helpless situation. It is ironic that Birtukan in this so-called pardon allegedly confesses and apologizes for wrongdoings committed in Stockholm, Sweden.
It is not difficult to parade a prisoner before television cameras and force her to confess her “crimes”. Political and war prisoners subjected to torture, deprivation and psychological manipulation have been known to condemn themselves, their families, their countries, and even the Almighty. Brutalized prisoners have been known to collaborate with their torturers to inflict horrendous violence on fellow prisoners. Political prisoners in solitary confinement have been driven to hysteria and madness by their isolation. Political and war prisoners have committed suicide to end their suffering at the hands of the captors.
Birtukan was held for months in a dark room with no human contact except a few minutes a week with her mother and daughter. Fear, anxiety and despair were her only companions. Heartache knocked constantly on the door to her dark room needling her: “Did you do the right thing leaving three year-old Hal’le to the care of your aging mother?” Self-doubt kept her awake in that dark room where time stood still asking her the same question over and over: “Is it worth all this suffering? Give up!” But a voice in her conscience would echo thunderously, “Like hell you’re going to give up, Birtukan. Fight on. Keep on fighting. ‘Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.'” In the end Birtukan signed Zenawi’s scrap of paper making exception to convictions of honor and good sense. We expected nothing less from such a great young woman.
Zenawi Wrote It, Birtukan Signed It!
What is written in the so-called pardon request is a transcription of what Zenawi said during his ignominious appearance at Columbia University[1] a couple of weeks ago. Using forensic document examination techniques, it can be demonstrated to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that Zenawi is the invisible hand that authored the pardon document. Simply stated, Zenawi wrote the pardon to himself and had Birtukan sign it. It is just as simple as that. But scientific investigative techniques aside, we all know, as Mandela has taught us, that “Only free men (and women) can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.” Terms and conditions are always dictated to prisoners. Birtukan is no position to negotiate her release by pardon or any other means. Zenawi wrote down his release terms and conditions and ordered Birtukan to sign it. The alleged “pardon” request could in no way be regarded as Birtukan’s voluntary confession of wrongdoing; it is Zenawi’s hallucination of Birtukan’s wrongdoing. It is hogwash.
Zenawi’s “pardon” may be “real” to his Western donors who want to ease their guilty-as-sin consciences for providing billions to support his dictatorship. For Zenawi’s apologists who will sell their souls for a patch of land to build a shack and throw in their grandmothers to sweeten the deal, it may be a real pardon. For the opportunists, brown nosers, derrier-kissers and mercenaries, it may be a legitimate pardon. But to any freedom-loving Ethiopian or any other reasonable human being, the “pardon” is nothing more than the reveries of a self-absorbed megalomaniac garbed in legalistic hokum.
The fact of the matter is that an innocent person’s freedom is not negotiable or pardonable. An innocent person cannot ask for a pardon nor a career criminal grant it. Zenawi makes a travesty of the institution of pardon, which has a long and honored history in human civilization; and occupies the highest position in the tradition of the law. Zenawi robbed Birtukan of her freedom. He did not free her by a “pardon”. Birtukan has always been free. Zenawi let Birtukan out of prison in 2010 for the same reason he put her in prison in 2008: Enlightened self-interest. He jailed her to make sure she will not whip him at the polls. He let her loose to pander to Birtukan’s generation and hoodwink the international community.
Just last year, Zenawi emphatically and sadistically guaranteed that “there will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” Now he says she is “free” to go because she scratched her initials on a scrap of paper. When his Western donor sugar daddies pled with him time and again to let Birtukan go, he told them to go to hell, hell, hell. When the Western donor fat cats unsheathed their gelatinous claws and threatened to withhold aid, he laughed in their faces. But he finally had to let Birtukan go (as he could never free her) not because he is a statesman, compassionate or squeezed by the donors, but because he is ghastly afraid of what Birtukan represents. She represents Ethiopia’s youth. She represents Ethiopian women. She represents the dreams and aspirations of 80 million people. She represents the ascent of freedom and democracy and the descent of dictatorship and oppression in Ethiopia. In sum, she represents the “future country of Ethiopia”.
Zenawi knows the youth and women of Ethiopia hold the key to his very survival and the permanence of the ethnic homelands (Bantustans) he has toiled for so long to create. He also knows they hold a deep grudge against him for chaining Birtukan in the dungeons of Kality while shackling them in what has become Prison Nation Ethiopia. By letting go Bitukan, Zenawi seeks atonement and redemption in the eyes of the young people and women of Ethiopia. It is his twisted way of asking them for a pardon. By releasing Birtukan, Zenawi hopes to release and unleash the good will and support of Ethiopia’s youth and women to himself and his regime.
It is laughable that Zenawi wants to be seen as magnanimous for granting “pardon” to Birtukan. But self-delusion is the quintessential attribute of all dictators. Zenawi confuses the arrogance of vanity with magnanimity. When a thief is forced to return what he has stolen to the rightful owner, it cannot be said that he is a virtuous man or performed an honest act. When the slave master is forced to emancipate his slave from bondage, it cannot be said that he freed the slave. The slave was always free until enslaved by the slave master. As one cannot thank the thief or praise the slave master, neither can Zenawi expect gratitude for doing what he could never do: Free Birtukan! Magnanimity, he must know, is to the virtuous as vice is to the vicious.
But Zenawi missed a fine opportunity to be truly magnanimous. He could have simply said he let Birtukan out in the interest of justice or for humanitarian reasons. Better yet, he could have done it in strict compliance with his own “pardon law”[2] in a process that is perfectly transparent yielding an outcome that would have preserved Birtukan’s dignity while saving him face. He could have stunned his critics by following his own law and performing a simple compassionate act. He could have gained the grudging respect of his opponents and the admiration of all for acting so courageously and honorably. He could have generated so much good will for himself. He could have even seen a glimmer of his own humanity. But his vampiric addiction to victimizing others, his irrepressible need to humiliate and suck dry the last drops of dignity from his opponents, the raging anger in his mind and the flaming hatred bottled in his heart will never allow him to become anything but what he is. But humiliating others is like throwing a boomerang which travels elliptically in the air and returns to the person who threw it. Zenawi did not humiliate Birtukan by forcing her to sign a scrap of paper confessing to wrongdoings she never committed. He humiliated himself by showing how petty, vacuous, small-minded and contemptible he is. But why waste ink or paper talking about a “pardon” that is not even worth the paper it is written on.
We are happy Birtukan is out, no longer in the dungeon. It does not matter how she got out. We couldn’t care less if she got out by scratching her initials on a scrap of paper oozing with lies and fabrications. We do not care if she got out by singing praises to a dictator. To be perfectly frank, we don’t give a damn how Birtukan got out of Zenawi’s prison. We are just glad she is out and back with her daughter, mother and the rest of her family, and her people. If Zenawi wants us to thank him for letting her go, we will be magnanimously happy to do so: “Thanks for nothing!”
For the rest of us who love, admire and respect Birtukan, let us resolve from this day on never to mention the name Birtukan Midekssa with the word “pardon” in the same phrase or sentence. It is blasphemy to say Ethiopia’s First Daughter and foremost patriot was pardoned into freedom by a universally-condemned human rights abuser.
It is not about the past. It is about now! What time is it?
It is Time to Celebrate Birtukan!
What a great young woman Birtukan truly is! What a genius she is! Birtukan signed that baloney passing off as a “pardon” and walked straight out of prison. She proved that she is indeed Birtukan Invictus, master of her destiny and captain of her soul. In a contest between beauty and the beast, brains trumped brawn once again. I can only imagine what she was thinking when she read the scrap of paper she was forced to sign. She probably chuckled a few times as she skimmed the paragraphs drenched in lies. I can imagine her gently reminding the so-called elders (shimagles): “Gentlemen, but you have forgotten so many of my others crimes. How could that be? Please, please, let me make a full confession”:
I, Birtukan Midekssa, in addition to all of the crimes I have confessed to committing as set forth fully in this pardon request, am also personally responsible for other dastardly crimes including global warming, global poverty, the global financial crises and recession, the war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA, sunspots and the disbanding of the Mickey Mouse Club.
Oh, well! Let us just celebrate Birtukan. Let us celebrate her enormous sacrifices. Let us pay her homage for the long months she endured in solitary confinement in one of the worst prison systems in the world as documented in the 2008 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report on Ethiopia. Let us thank her for standing up to dictatorship. Let us show her our genuine love, appreciation and gratitude for being an enduring symbol of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia. Let us support her in anything she desires to do for herself and her family. Above all, let us embrace her for the moral courage she showed under the most inhumane circumstances.
Birtukan now has attained greatness reserved for the very few. She now walks in the very footsteps of Mandela, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. She must now walk the same long walk Mandela took to bring freedom to South Africa. She must now march the long march that Gandhi made to bring independence to India. She must now walk across many bridges like Martin Luther King to heal a nation divided by hatred. It will be a long walk and a protracted march to her dreamland of the “future country of Ethiopia.” But I have no doubts, none at all, that she will one day enter triumphantly into that glorious “future country” to the rhythmic ululations of millions of her people.
It’s Time to Tell Birtukan We Are Mighty, Mighty Proud of Her!
I want Birtukan to know that I am proud of her more than words can describe. I am proud of who she is and what she has accomplished in advancing the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia. But there are a few other things I would like for her to know also. If she ever feels that she may have let us down while she was in solitary confinement, I want her to know that the pain and suffering she endured in the dark in total isolation has uplifted us for our lifetimes. If she ever has doubts that she could have done more for us while chained in Zenawi’s dungeon, I want her to know that she has done more in solitary confinement than a million of us put together sitting idly in freedom. If she ever experiences misgivings for signing a scrap of paper to reunite with her daughter, her mother and her people, I want her to know that we are proud, damn proud she signed it to get the hell out of hell. If she ever thinks that she has to explain something she did or did not do, said or did not say while caged in Zenawi’s prison, I want her to know that her actions speak louder than any words she may be able to utter. She has nothing to explain; her life of struggle and suffering for her people speaks volumes. If she thinks she could have done things differently or better, I want her to know that she did it all just right. We would not want her to change a thing. She spoke the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She paid a high, very high price for speaking truth to power. But so did Mandela. She knows it comes with the territory for all great leaders. Above all else, we want her to know that we are mighty, mighty proud of everything she has done, EVERYTHING! She has nothing to regret, and everything to be proud.
It’s Also Time to Understand Birtukan
Let us also understand Birtukan. It is true that she is a strong young woman of conviction and principle. That is why I call her Birtukan Invictus (the Unconquered) or ayibegere. But even the strongest steel exposed to the harsh elements suffers metal fatigue and bends. Let us remember that for the past two years Birtukan was denounced, vilified, strong-armed and manhandled. She was thrown into the dungeon of wrath and tears. She was beaten, tortured, bludgeoned and bloodied. She was thrown in solitary confinement. She was mocked, ridiculed, humiliated and disrespected. Zenawi has done everything he could to shatter her bones, cripple her body, break her heart, crush her spirit and confuse her mind; but her soul — the temple of her principles, her compassion, her decency, her courage and her bottomless love for her people — remains intact and unblemished. Zenawi could not touch it! Birtukan still stands tall, unbowed and unafraid.
I plead with all of her well-intentioned colleagues and supporters who surround her to take it easy and give her breathing space. A victim of solitary confinement, the worst form of psychological torture, needs time to heal and regain her inner balance. Let us always remind ourselves that Birtukan was kept in solitary confinement under the most degrading conditions. She was told she has been abandoned and forgotten by the world. She was told day and night that nobody cared about her, nobody gave a damn. She was told she will die alone in that dark cold room. Now she needs to be with her family and friends and the people who love and care about her to heal the deep psychological wounds of the silent torture of solitary confinement.
The winds of politics will sway their fickle cargo to and fro, but it is unfair and inconsiderate to hang out Birtukan in the political wind so quickly after she had spent so much time in solitary confinement. She needs to be left alone for awhile. She does not need to be burdened with problems. Though we all know that Birtukan is an ordinary young woman destined to do extraordinary things, we should not mistake her for “superwoman” who can solve all problems for all people by waiving a magic wand. It has been taught that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” This is the season to honor Birtukan; it is the time show how proud we are of her. This the season for us to show her our love, respect and admiration. This is the time for her to rest her weary body and nurse her battered spirit. It is not the time or the season to put the burdens of discord, squabbles and dissension on her frail shoulders.
Free All Political Prisoners in Ethiopia
Birtukan is let out of prison, but tens of thousands of others remain imprisoned for their political beliefs. We must continue to work arduously for the release of so many other political prisoners whose names and faces are known but to their families and their torturers.
There are also other prisoners who are in dire need of help. These inmates inhabit a prison of their own making. They are the prisoners of hate “locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness”, as Mandela would describe them. They live in a prison of the closed mind dwelling in a body with a stone cold heart. Our sister Birtukan has been to hell and back; but her tormentors still live there; or in the verse of Mark Spencer:
So here sits the prisoner,
Shackled in his cell.
Wrestling with the demons,
Of his private hell.
In the right season and at the right time, I have no doubts that Birtukan and her generation will free those shackled in the cells of their private hell because they know all too well the wages of hate. Birtukan and her generation will rise up and declare in the words of Martin Luther King: “We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.” It is now the right time and right season to rededicate ourselves to Birtukan’s “future country of Ethiopia.” No more bitterness, no more hatred, no more cruelty and no more inhumanity.
Birtukan Unbound! Prometheus Unbound!
I have had no greater honor in my life than pleading Birtukan’s cause at every forum and opportunity available to me since she was jailed in December 2008. Birtukan has been a source of great inspiration and strength to me. I have learned the true meaning of moral integrity and courage from her. I stand in awe of her for the price she has paid speaking truth to power. Though she is young, she has shown more wisdom than so many of her elders who have spent so much of our lives in pursuit of formal education.
There are countless individuals and groups throughout the world who have toiled so hard to see Birtukan free. Many of them worked quietly. I have seen many young people use modern technology to make Birtukan’s case known to the world. I have seen many young people flooding public events with flyers of Birtukan’s imprisonment, standing by the street side waving banners and silently protesting at candle light vigils. I have seen some walking the halls of power in America and heard of others doing the same in Europe, Canada and Australia pleading for Birtukan’s release. Each and every one of them deserves our gratitude and appreciation. I believe all of us who have worked in Birtukan’s cause have done so not just because we believe Birtukan is an extraordinary leader and compassionate human being, but also because she is the quintessential symbol of her generation. Our unshakable faith in Birtukan is merely a reflection of our unwavering faith in her generation. I willingly confess that I truly, sincerely and genuinely believe in the existence of that wonderful dreamland which Birtukan has often described as the “future country of Ethiopia”!
God Bless Ethiopia! God Bless Birtukan Midekssa and Her Family!
Devaluation is associated with fixed or pegged exchange rates systems whose value is not being determined by the normal (free) mechanics of supply and demand. In general, devaluation reflects the existence of serious macroeconomic problems (imbalances) and also reflects weaknesses of the government which is devaluing its currency. When it comes to Ethiopia, the economic weakness is reflected by several of the resource gaps: the savings-investment gap, the balance of payments gap which in 2009 escalated, total exports and imports amounting $1.657 billion and $7.093 billion, respectively, according to the CIA World Fact book. Ethiopia is also afflicted by other gaps such as a continuous budgetary gap, a skilled human resource gap, a significant agricultural (food security) gap, a dire foreign exchange gap, technology gap and most importantly a good governance gap[1]. By just looking at the solvency issue, that is, the balance of payments and budgetary balance gaps and the alarming foreign exchange shortages, one is led to believe that the birr is overvalued and devaluation is necessary. When I wrote the popular article titled as the “The Causes of the Soaring Ethiopian Inflation Rate,” a few years ago and suggested that the birr was overvalued, some of my readers were perplexed by such an expression, informing me that I was wrong. They did so partly because they thought I was agreeing with the government that devaluing the birr would serve as a panacea for the structural problems that the Ethiopian economy was facing and partly because they thought the theoretical possibilities were applicable to Ethiopia. All that I was saying was this: using standard economic reasoning and rationales of devaluation, the fact that there is a parallel market (black market) with the birr buying less dollars/euros means that the birr was overvalued. The fact that the government has been facing foreign exchange shortages and is unable to meet the lowest required foreign exchange reserves (which is supposed to be not less than a 3-month import coverage, but the actual coverage at times being less than six weeks of import coverage) and the fact that the IMF has been warning the government that it would face financial difficulties implies that the birr could collapse, sooner or later. Moreover, the fact that even some domestic firms were suspending their operations and unable to import the necessary intermediate inputs from overseas due to the lack of foreign exchange also indicate a balance of payments disequilibrium (that is, the exchange rate between the birr and other currencies has become untenable). It also means that, with disequilibrium in the exchange rate in existence, the government will be unable to carry on its new 5-year “Growth and Transformation Plan.” It is for these already existing realities and inherent weaknesses why I argued the birr was overvalued long ago. I also believed that were it not for the continuous influx of donor assets (estimated to be $3 billion in 2009) and remittances (the National Bank of Ethiopia reporting total remittances just for the first two quarters of 2009 being $1798.8 million), the value of the birr would have been much lower than what it was then and what it is now as well.
Regarding the political aspect of the weakness, in general, devaluation comes as a result of the realities of economic mismanagement and the push (many people like to call it- coercion) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In general, a greater portion of a country’s citizens whose government bows to IMF’s pressure is considered to be a weak one. Second, since those firms who are engaged in the production of exportables tend to benefit the most from the devaluation of the birr, it indicates the increasing lobbying power of those firms (groups) which are able to turn policy decisions towards their favor. In the Ethiopian case, given that several of the TPLF- controlled conglomerates organized under EFFORT and REST (in collaboration with Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi’s MIDROC Ethiopia) have seized the state, it is only them who stand to benefit from the devaluation. The fact that powerful elements are able to gear government policies towards their favor in turn reflects the weakness of the government which is supposed to look after for the interests of the country and the general populace. … [read more]
Alemayehu G. Mariam
