Eyewitnesses reported to Ethiopian Review yesterday that Tekeze River in northern Ethiopia has flooded, raising suspicion that the recently completed hydro-power dam may have sustained damage. Some speculate that the Woyanne regime flooded the river to restrict movement in the area, which has seen intensified movements by Ethiopian resistance groups who are fighting against the brutal regime.
Normally, until the month of July, Tekeze’s water level is low. In the past few days, unexpectedly the river flooded causing some people who tried to cross it to drown.
The Woyanne regime is not willing to give out any information about the flood.
The Tekeze hydro-power project was inaugurated on November 14, 2009. It has the capacity to generate 300 MW electric power and was constructed at a cost of 3.9 billion birr. The project took seven year to complete.
In late January, the Gilgel Gibe hydro-power dam in southern Ethiopia stopped power generation when a part of its 26-kilometer tunnel collapsed.
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital said on Monday it is setting up a new $150 million co-investment fund for Africa, focusing particularly on the east of the continent.
The main investors in the fund will be PROPARCO, a French development financial institution, the Dutch development bank FMO, along with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and potentially a fourth financier, which Citadel Capital would not disclose.
“(It is) our first ever fund, a co-investment fund. We are looking at closing for it by the end of the second quarter,” Citadel’s Karim Sadek, a managing director, told Reuters in an interview.
“They will be co-investing two-to-one for every dollar they have invested equity to. They are looking at a number of deals; waste management, the agrisector, transport.”
Citadel Capital, which manages $8.3 billion in investments, has said it is looking to expand its investments in Middle Eastern and East African countries, especially those with big domestic markets in commodities, such as Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Citadel Capital, which has created 17 companies to invest in the Middle East and East Africa, said in October it had set up at least two new funds for investment in these regions.
The Africa-centric fund is expected to take the lion’s share of the $500 million total Citadel Capital is targeting for the two new funds.
[the Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia criticized a British official’s call for the release of an Ethiopian opposition leader, saying it displayed “warped symptoms of a neo-colonial disposition.”
In a statement published on March 6 in the Addis Ababa-based Reporter newspaper, British Minister of State for Africa Baroness Glenys Kinnock said Ethiopia’s imprisonment of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa “undermines” trust in the Horn of Africa country. A copy of the statement was e-mailed to Bloomberg today by the British embassy in Addis Ababa.
Kinnock also urged Meles Zenawi’s government to probe “serious allegations” that the distribution of foreign aid in Ethiopia was being used to win votes for the ruling party in elections scheduled for May 23.
Ethiopia’s government was surprised at “the temerity with which she took on the role of a mission-school mistress whose task it is to supervise the natives lest they slide back to their ‘primitive’ ways,” Ethiopia’s government’s said in a statement in the state-owned Ethiopian Herald yesterday.
Ethiopia’s opposition has claimed that it faces continued harassment and intimidation in the run-up to this year’s vote.
On March 2, an opposition candidate for parliament was stabbed to death in a restaurant he owned in northern Ethiopia. Earlier that week, a second opposition candidate was hospitalized after being beaten.
Opposition leaders have said Meles’ ruling party was behind both attacks. The government has denied the claims, saying both men were attacked by people who were not ruling party members.
Protesters Killed
Security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 protesters in unrest following a disputed 2005 vote and jailed many leading opposition leaders, including Birtukan. European Union observers concluded that the election fell short of international standards and was marred by irregularities in vote-counting.
Ethiopia also accused Kinnock of being “an ardent champion” of Eritrea, which fought a 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.
In addition, it said Kinnock had colluded with the 2005 EU electoral observer mission in an effort to foment a “revolution” to overthrow Meles’ government.
The dispute with Kinnock comes as Ethiopia’s Supreme Court today ordered four newspaper publishers that were closed after the 2005 ballot to pay fines imposed as a result of the treason trials that followed that year’s election.
The U.K. granted Ethiopia 220 million pounds ($333.2 million) in aid in the current fiscal year, according to the British embassy in Addis Ababa.
If democracy is a government of the people, kleptocracy is a government of thieves.
Last week the secret world of Meles Zenawi’s kleptocracy, famine aid-sharking and money laundering in Ethiopia was exposed by two of his former comrades-in-arms in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer and TPLF co-founder Dr. Aregawi Berhe, detailed the scam used to swindle, hustle and con millions of dollars from international famine relief organizations in the mid-1980s. The two former top leaders accused the TPLF leadership, including Zenawi, for taking tens of millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in the Tigrai region to buy weapons and enrich themselves. Gebremedhin said he personally handed cash payments and checks in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega, the top two TPLF leaders who controlled the cash flow of the organization. Although Gebremedhin was the treasurer, he said he was not privileged to know what happened to the money after he delivered it to Zenawi or Nega. The incriminatory evidence, (including a candid photograph of TPLF cadres counting and recording wads of cash handed over to them by a foreign aid worker from a large satchel on the floor), is shocking as it is damning and irrefutable.
In 1984/5, at the height of the catastrophic famine, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars were raised internationally for famine relief in Ethiopia. Michael Buerek of the BBC who visited the Tigrai region at the height of the famine in 1984 described the situation as “a biblical famine in the 20th Century” and “the closest thing to hell on Earth” (See video[1]).
According to the available evidence, normal delivery of emergency humanitarian aid to the Tigrai region in 1984 was virtually impossible because of rebel activity in the outlying areas and bombardment by the military junta. The road normally used to deliver aid supplies to the Tigrai region from the capital had become unusable because of rebel military activity. The various international famine relief non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had to find alternate routes to quickly deliver relief aid to victims in rebel-controlled areas. Many of these NGOs eventually set up shop in eastern Sudan close to the Tigrai border in an attempt to deliver aid quickly. The large concentration of NGOs and the publicity surrounding the enormous fundraising efforts by various international celebrities for Ethiopian famine victims caught the attention of the TPLF leaders who saw a lucrative business opportunity for themselves delivering relief aid to victims in areas their controlled.
According to the former TPLF leaders, Zenawi and his top cadres hatched out and successfully executed a scam to use a front “humanitarian relief” organization called “Relief Society of Tigrai” (REST) for aid delivery. The TPLF leaders managed to “convince” the various NGOs operating out of the Sudan that REST is a genuine charity organization completely separate from the TPLF, the declared military wing. In fact, REST was the other face of the TPLF coin.
The evidence further indicates that to magnify the severity and extremity of the famine situation for the NGOs, the TPLF leaders ordered the exodus of large numbers of victims into the Sudan creating a mushroom of refugee settlements in the Sudanese border areas overnight. Using different techniques and methods, the TPLF leaders stage managed an elaborate marketing “drama” for the NGOs to buy and deliver aid to the large famine-stricken population inside Tigrai. This was done principally by organizing a small group of their most trusted and inner circle members to pose as “grain merchants” and solicit business from the NGOs.
The deception games, or more accurately the famine aid-sharking scheme, played on the Western NGOs were varied. At the onset of the scam, they used a three-staged process. In stage one, one group of TPLF/REST officials masquerading as legitimate grain merchants would approach the myriad NGOs and offer to sell them substantial quantities of grain for quick delivery to the famine victims. At the time, the TPLF had acquired and stashed in secret warehouses grains from various sources, including NGOs, for use by its fighters. These secretly stashed grain stockpiles were in fact being offered for sale to the NGOs. The TPLF/REST “grain dealers” would complete the sale transaction and return back to their hideouts with the payment from the NGOs. Gebremedhin said he delivered to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega the cash and check payments from the NGOs. He described the scam with mind-numbing simplicity:
I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. The NGOs don’t know me because my name was Mohammed. It was a trick assigned (created) by the top leaders for the NGOs. I received a great amount of money from the NGOs and the money was automatically taken by (the TPLF) leaders. The money, much of it, the leaders put it in their accounts in Western Europe. Some of it was used to buy weapons. The people did not get half a kilogram of maize.
Once the purchase was made another group of TPLF/REST operatives would take over the responsibility of delivering the relief aid inside Tigrai. In the second stage, TPLF/REST officials would facilitate spot checks of grain stockpiles in their own secret warehouses. But the warehouses were tricked out. Gebremedhin said, “if you go there, half of the warehouse was stacked full of sand.” The NGO representatives would perform visual inspections of the stockpiles, give their approval and cross back into the Sudan to conduct additional grain purchases.
In the third stage, the same or different group of TPLF/REST officials would go back to the NGOs and make a pitch for additional sales of grains for delivery in a different part of Tigrai. These offers did not involve any new or fresh supplies of grain. Instead, stockpiles of grain already in secret storage facilities in various locations throughout Tigrai were trucked around to new locations, giving the appearance to the NGOs that fresh supplies of grain were being bought in and delivered. Since the aid workers have no means of independently verifying the grain that is being shuttled from one location to another from completely fresh shipments, they would perform cursory inspections and make payments. In that manner, TPLF/REST was able to sell and resell multiple times the same previously acquired stockpile of grain (and sand) to the NGOs generating millions of dollars in revenue. TPLF/REST used various ways and techniques in 1985 to maximize its business transactions with the NGOs and in selling grain shipments sent by donor countries.
Dr. Aregawi told the BBC that of the $100 million that went through TPLF hands at the time, $95 million was diverted for weapons purchases and other purposes not related to famine relief. He stated that the TPLF stage-managed “dramas” to “fool the aid workers”. A recent BBC investigation identified a 1985 official CIA document which concluded: “Some funds that insurgent organizations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.” Robert Houdek, a senior US diplomat in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, was quoted by the BBC saying that TPLF members at the time told him that some aid money was used to buy weapons. An aid worker named Max Peberdy stated that he had personally delivered to TPLF/REST officials $500,000 in Ethiopian currency to purchase grain.
The prima facie evidence of massive relief aid diversion by the TPLF is compelling and damning[2]. Those accused of involvement in the wrongdoing have dismissed the evidence as “rubbish”; they have not called for a full fact-finding inquiry to clear their names of such serious and grave charges. Until such inquiry takes place, the evidence of aid-sharking and theft stands unchallenged and unrefuted. To be sure, very little of the famine aid money in 1984/5 channeled through the TPLF went to help the hungry, poor and dying in Tigrai. Nearly all of it (95%) was diverted for military and other purposes. Bob Geldof who organized Live Aid/Band Aid in 1984 collecting tens of millions of dollars in donations recently threatened, “If there is any money missing I will sue the Ethiopian government.”
The systematic plunder and pillage of Ethiopia over the past two decades can now be put in clear perspective.
We now know:
Why Ethiopia’s only outlet to the sea was signed, sealed and delivered, overriding contrary advice by international diplomats;
What went down in the deal to hand over Badme to the aggressor in binding international arbitration following the aggressor’s decisive military defeat at the cost of over 80,000 Ethiopian lives;
How the May 2005 elections were stolen in broad daylight;
Why the missing millions of dollars worth of gold bars from the national bank in 2007 are still missing; Of the secret sweetheart deals that turned over the country’s gold mines to cronies at bargain-basement prices;
How state enterprises were given out to family, friends and supporters for pittance in the name of privatization;
About the secret deals made to demarcate the border between the Sudan and Ethiopia;
About the fire sale of millions of hectares of farmland to foreign “investors”;
About the no-collateral bank loans in the millions of dollars to friends and supporters and the 1.7 billion birr ($141.6 million) loan to Messebo Cement Factory, one of the many companies owned by the “Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray” (EFFORT a/k/a Zenawi, Inc.,), which sent the Development Bank of Ethiopia careening into insolvency);
About the monopoly of the cement business by Zenawi, Inc./EFFORT;
About the multi-million dollar child-trafficking business in the name of inter-country adoptions;
About the secret deals to sole source the construction of the Gilgel Gibe dams to an Italian company;
About the “genocide and interhamwe” scare talk;
About the corrupt procurement and contracting practices that direct state business to cronies, supporters and friends;
About the rampant nepotism, patronage and clientelism;
Why draconian “laws” we enacted to criminalize NGOs and the independent press; and on and on and on.
We know because we now have the blueprint for the perfect kleptocracy!
One must grudgingly admire these con men for their sheer audacity, genius and creativity in ripping off so much money from the charities in the mid-1980s (and for the last two decades from the Ethiopian people). Even Ali Baba and his 40 thieves could not have pulled off such a brilliant scheme to sell and re-sell the NGOs the same sand as grain over and over again. Even Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, would not have been able to come up with such an exquisitely perfect plan to hoodwink and bamboozle gullible NGOs of millions of dollars. They truly deserve the title, “A New Breed of African Thieves”.
The facts are plain to see. We know now that these thieves did not stand for the people of Tigrai at the critical hour in 1984. They sure as hell do not stand for the people of Ethiopia today. They stand for themselves and no one else. They will try to cling to power by creating enmity and polarization between the people of Tigrai and their brothers and sister in the rest of Ethiopia. That is the ONLY way they can stay in power. As an old Ethiopian saying teaches, disorder and chaos creates ideal conditions for thieves (Gir gir le leba yimechal.) The Ethiopian opposition today is in a state of gir-gir (disarray, discord and mess). When the core of opposition political activity revolves around ethnic bashing, finger pointing and finger wagging, the ideal conditions for thievery are created and maintained. But there is a way to deal with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves:
Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity.
When we have done these things, we will have freed ourselves from domination and rule by a kleptocracy — a government of thieves, by thieves, for thieves!
We should all thank BBC’s Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, for his extraordinary investigative work in this affair.
FIGHT CRIME. SAY “NO” TO THIEVES!
[1] See 1984 BBC video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8321043.stm
[2] See details of the scam in excerpts from Gebremedin Araya’s Amharic manuscript: Pt. 1, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/telat_ena_ethiopia.pdf
Pt. 2, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/tplf_crimes_against_humanity.pdf
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
There is no way that elections can be fair, let alone credible, with opposition leaders in jail or unable to campaign freely. At the bare minimum, the international community should push for the release of these political prisoners ahead of the elections. And if nothing changes, we should not be afraid to stand with the Ethiopian people and state clearly that an election in name only is an affront to their country’s democratic aspirations.
March 2, 2010, statement by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
Mr. President, I’d like to note the many challenges to democracy we are seeing across Africa today. I have long said that promoting and supporting democratic institutions should be a key tenet of our engagement with Africa, as good governance is essential to Africa’s stability and its prosperity. Africans are well aware of this and that is why we have seen spirited democratic movements throughout the continent, even against great odds. It is also why African leaders have committed at the African Union with the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance that they will work to enforce “the right to participate in free, credible and democratic political processes.”
The previous administration spoke often about its commitment to promote democracy in Africa and throughout the world. The current administration too has committed to encourage strong and sustainable democratic governments, though it has rightly acknowledged that democracy is about more than holding elections. In his speech in Ghana, President Obama said, “America will not seek to impose any system of government on any nation – the essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its own destiny. What we will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance – on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard; on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved…”
Mr. President, I agree that we must take a more holistic approach in our efforts to promote and support democracy. Democracy is not just about a single event every few years; it is also about an ongoing process of governance that is accountable and responsive to the needs and will of citizens. And it is about citizens having the space, encouragement, and ability to educate themselves, mobilize and participate in that process. We must help countries build such institutions and encourage such space. And we must be willing to speak out against erosions of democratic rights and freedoms – and not only once a country reaches a crisis point such as a coup.
Mr. President, while some African countries have made great democratic strides, I am concerned about the fragile state of democracy on the continent, especially within a number of countries set to hold elections over the next 15 months. In particular, I am concerned by the democratic backsliding in several countries that are close U.S. partners and influential regional actors. It is notable that the Director of National Intelligence included a section on “stalled democratization” in Africa in his public testimony last month to the Senate Intelligence Committee on annual threat assessments. He stated, “The number of African states holding elections continues to grow although few have yet to develop strong, enduring democratic institutions and traditions. In many cases the ‘winner-take-all’ ethos predominates and risks exacerbating ethnic, regional, and political divisions.”
Elections are only one component of the democratic process, but still they are a significant one. The pre- and post-elections periods in many countries are ones in which democratic space and institutions are most clearly tested and face the greatest strains. They can be the periods in which democracy is at its best, but they can also be the periods in which democracy faces some of its greatest threats. This is the case not only in Africa; this is the case here in the United States and that is why I have worked tirelessly to limit the power of wealthy interests to unduly influence our elections.
Among those African countries scheduled to hold national elections in 2010 are Ethiopia, Sudan, Togo, Central African Republic, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burkina Faso. Guinea, Madagascar, and Niger, three countries that have recently had coups, have also committed to hold elections this year. And in early 2011, Benin, Djibouti, Uganda, Nigeria and Chad are all scheduled to hold elections.
Mr. President, of all these elections, Sudan’s is already receiving significant attention, and for good reason. That election – the country’s first multiparty one in 24 years – has the potential to be a historic step toward political transformation in Sudan if it is credible. However, restrictions on opposition parties and the continued insecurity in Darfur have many doubting whether the conditions even exist for credible elections. Furthermore, increasing violence within southern Sudan is very worrying. In any case, the results of Sudan’s election in April will have a great influence on political dynamics within the country and region for years to come and will pave the way for southern Sudan’s vote on self-determination, set for January 2011. The international community is rightly keeping a close eye on these elections, and we need to continue supporting efforts to make them credible and be prepared to speak out against any abuses or rigging.
Similarly, we need to keep a close eye on the other African countries holding important elections this year. Let me highlight four countries whose upcoming elections I believe also merit close attention and specific international engagement.
The first is Ethiopia, which is set to hold elections in May. In his testimony, the Director of National Intelligence stated, “In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles and his party appear intent on preventing a repeat of the relatively open 2005 election which produced a strong opposition showing.” Indeed, in Ethiopia, democratic space has been diminishing steadily since 2005. Over the last two years, the Ethiopian Parliament has passed several new laws granting broad discretionary powers to the government to arrest opponents. One such law, the Charities and Societies Proclamation, imposes direct government controls over civil society and bars any civil society group receiving more than 10 percent of its funding from international sources to do work related to human rights, gender equality, the rights of the disabled, children’s rights or conflict resolution. Another law, the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, defines terrorism-related crimes so broadly that they could extend to non-violent forms of political dissent and protest.
Mr. President, Ethiopia is an important partner of the United States and we share many interests. We currently provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid annually to Ethiopia. That is why I have been so concerned and outspoken about these repressive measures. And that is why I believe we have a stake in ensuring that Ethiopia’s democratic process moves forward, not backward. With the elections just three months away, several key opposition leaders remain imprisoned, most notably Birtukan Mideksa, the head of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party. There is no way that elections can be fair, let alone credible, with opposition leaders in jail or unable to campaign freely. At the bare minimum, the international community should push for the release of these political prisoners ahead of the elections. And if nothing changes, we should not be afraid to stand with the Ethiopian people and state clearly that an election in name only is an affront to their country’s democratic aspirations.
The second country I want to highlight is Burundi. As many people will recall, Burundi was devastated by political violence throughout the 1990s, leaving over 100,000 people dead. Yet, the country has made tremendous strides in recent years to recover and rebuild from its civil war. In 2005, it held multi-party national and local elections, a major milestone on its transition to peace. Burundians are set to head to the polls again this year. If these elections are fair, free and peaceful, they have the potential to be another milestone along the path toward reconciliation, lasting stability and democratic institutions. This would be good not only for Burundi, but also for the whole of Central Africa. Burundians deserve international support and encouragement as they strive for that goal.
Still, many challenges remain. The tensions that fed and were fueled by Burundi’s civil war have not entirely gone away. And there is some evidence that the parties continue to use the tools of war to pursue their political goals. According to a report by the International Crisis Group last month, “opposition parties are facing harassment and intimidation from police and the ruling party’s youth wing and appear to be choosing to respond to violence with violence.” Furthermore, there continue to be reports that the National Intelligence Service is being used by the ruling party to destabilize the opposition. If these trends continue, they could taint Burundi’s elections and set back its peace process. The international community, which has played a big role in Burundi’s peace process, cannot wait until a month before the election to speak out and engage the parties these issues. We need to do it now.
Mr. President, Burundi’s neighbor to the north, Rwanda, is also slated to hold important elections this summer. Rwanda is another country that has come a long way. Since the genocide in 1994, the government and people of Rwanda have made impressive accomplishments in rebuilding the country and improving basic services. It is notable that Rwanda was the top reformer worldwide in the 2010 World Bank’s “Doing Business Report.” President Kagame has shown commendable and creative leadership in this respect. On the democratic front, however, Rwanda still has a long way to go.
Understandably there are real challenges to fostering democracy some 15 years after the genocide, but it is troubling that there is not more space within Rwanda for criticism and opposition voices. The State Department’s 2008 Human Rights Report for Rwanda stated, “There continued to be limits on freedom of speech and of association, and restrictions on the press increased.” With elections looming, there are now some reports that opposition party members in Rwanda are facing increasing threats and harassment. The international community should not shy away from pushing for greater democratic space in Rwanda, which is critical for the country’s lasting stability. We fail to be true friends to the Rwandan people if we do not stand with them in the fight against renewed abuse of civil and political rights. In the next few months in the run-up to the elections, it is a key time for international donors to raise these issues with Kigali.
Mr. President, finally I would like to talk about Uganda, which is set to hold elections in February 2011. Uganda, like Rwanda, is a close friend of the United States, and we have worked together on many joint initiatives over recent years. President Museveni deserves credit for his leadership on many issues both within the country and the wider region. However, at the same time, Museveni’s legacy has been tainted by his failure to allow democracy to take hold in Uganda. Uganda’s most recent elections have been hurt by reports of fraud, intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions of opposition candidates. The Director of National Intelligence stated in his testimony that Uganda remains essentially a “one-party state” and said the government “is not undertaking democratic reforms in advance of the elections scheduled for 2011.”
Uganda’s elections next year could be a defining moment for the country and will have ramifications for the country’s long-term stability. The riots in Buganda last September showed that regional and ethnic tensions remain strong in many parts of the country. Therefore, it is important that the United States and other friends of Uganda work with that country’s leaders to ensure critical electoral reforms are enacted. In the consolidated appropriations act that passed in December, Congress provided significant assistance for Uganda, but also specifically directed the Secretary of State “to closely monitor preparations for the 2011 elections in Uganda and to actively promote…the independence of the election commission; the need for an accurate and verifiable voter registry; the announcement and posting of results at the polling stations; the freedom of movement and assembly and a process free of intimidation; freedom of the media; and the security and protection of candidates.”
Mr. President, again these challenges are not unique to Africa. Here in the United States, we too have to work constantly to ensure the integrity of our elections and our democratic processes. But I believe these upcoming elections in a number of African states could have major ramifications for the overall trajectory of democracy on the continent as well as for issues of regional security. I also believe several of these elections could significantly impact U.S. policy and strategic partnerships on the continent. For that reason, I do not believe we can wait until weeks or days before these elections to start focusing on them. We need to start engaging well in advance and helping to pave the way for truly democratic institutions and the consolidation of democracy. This includes aligning with democratic actors that speak out against repressive measures that erode political and civil rights. The Obama administration has done this well in some cases, but we need to do it more consistently and effectively. In the coming months, I hope to work with the administration to ensure we have a clear policy and the resources to that end.
