Ethiopia and the United States: History, Diplomacy and Analysis
By Prof. Getachew Metaferia
New York: Algora Publishing, 2009, 208 pp.
Reviewed by Leslie Wilson
Since its establishment, the United States has maintained a unique relationship with Ethiopia. Long regarded by Americans as the most important nation in Africa, Ethiopia has also played a pivotal role in American-African affairs. Ethiopia’s influence grew at the end of the nineteenth century when it rejected colonizers and further during the twentieth century as its ruler appealed to the League of Nations for an end to colonization. Americans of African heritage embraced Ethiopia as the “motherland” and a symbol of pride that many were willing to sacrifice their lives to protect. And, in many respects, Ethiopia was equally regarded as the philosophical birthplace of Negritude and Pan-Africanism as African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans made the nation the site of their philanthropy and capitalistic investment.
Yet, while numerous historians have looked across the Atlantic to this idealized African nation, the reverse analysis has not been given the same attention. The Ethiopian perspective of this long relationship is what makes Ethiopia and the United States so interesting. Getachew Metaferia has skillfully placed his examination within the twentieth century to examine American and Ethiopian relationships during America’s rise to a world power. By viewing Ethiopia from the lens of colonization, World Wars, and the Cold War, Metaferia, in essence, has written an unknown history full of complexities typically not considered by western scholars.
Ethiopia’s long history is not solely defined by what happens in 1896, but it is a good place to begin an examination of national relations through a global racial perspective. By 1890, Europeans had already deemed people of color inferior to themselves. Their scramble for land in Africa and Asia promoted extreme cases of social Darwinism and racism. Europeans were pitted against each other and it came to a climax before the end of the century. The Italians, who are fighting to establish themselves in an European image of whiteness, failed to defeat the Ethiopians, who were depicted as an African representation of blackness, at Adowa in 1896. The defeat changed the course of European history as white men lost their aura of invincibility.
Working backwards from Adowa, Metaferia is able to reshape the Ethiopian identity. In establishing Ethiopia’s two thousand year history, he explains why it is one of the special countries in the world and why America, a non-colonial power, would seek an alliance with it.
From this vantage point Metaferia begins his analysis over fifteen chapters and eight appendices. After two introductory sections, he moves to the development of a relationship that initiates in 1900. At that time, Robert Skinner, an American Consul in France, appeals to President McKinley for a delegation to go to Ethiopia believing that it will be “a country destined to play a large part in the future of Africa.” Three years later, the State Department and President Roosevelt approve of the trip and dispatch Skinner and a delegation to Ethiopia. The mission culminates in an agreement between Skinner and Emperor Menelik that grants Ethiopia most favored nation status.
This event marks the beginning of a century of diplomatic relations that characterizes this book. Metaferia weaves his account from the Ethiopian perspective but provides enough information so that non-Africanist centered readers can feel comfortable. He reveals how Menelik improved the relationship over time by enhancing the status of American diplomats and expanding trade.
The Ethiopian government equally sends representatives to the United States. One particular delegation, a goodwill mission in 1919, is featured in chapter four. This group visits New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington and San Francisco. Metaferia reveals that this visit enables members of the party to see America and bring western innovations back to Ethiopia, but also exposes them to the extent of American racism. Although the State Department went to great lengths to ensure that the travelers were not victims of discrimination, they could not stop them from seeing aspects of segregation and inequality. Subsequent Ethiopian visitors would not be as lucky and will experience racism first-hand.
Racism was one of the reasons that the United States abandoned Ethiopia from late 1935 to 1941. Rather than denounce Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, the Americans withdrew military support and suspended trade. American officials were critical of the Italian aggression and massive slaughter of innocents, but following the lead of the British, America refused to push for the indictment of Italian leaders for war crimes. And after 1941, rather than to reject the neo-colonial impulse, the United States supported quasi-British control of Ethiopian assets.
Ethiopia and the United States constantly exposes and refutes western racism. It pinpoints how America regarded Ethiopia as an important nation, but still violated its treaties with the African nation to further its own agenda during World War II and the Cold War.
As a result, Haile Selassie, and not an American leader, emerges as the greatest statesmen in the relationship between the two nations. Activities during his reign span five chapters. Metaferia reveals that Haile Selassie secretly met President Roosevelt after Yalta to ask for more technological and political support. The emperor wanted Roosevelt to go against British dominance in the Horn of Africa. Over the ensuing years Haile Selassie communicated with American presidents asking for greater economic ties and military support. New agreements, treaties and arrangements followed. In return, Ethiopia emerged as the chief American partner in Africa in the fight against communism. Ethiopia sent troops to Korea, supported UN missions in Africa, and developed alliances with Israel. It adopted American style education systems and used American practices in farming and business. From 1941 to 1974, Ethiopia became the foci of American expectations for African nations.
This relationship was brought to an abrupt end by the fall of the emperor in 1974. However, it is important to note that Haile Selassie fearing attacks from Somila asked Washington for military aid in 1973. The refusal of the Nixon Administration to help pushed Selassie and future Ethiopian leaders to seek assistance from the Soviet Union.
Chapters eight, nine and ten focus on the fall of the emperor and the years of military rule. In many respects they are the best sections of the book. Here Metaferia provides details that reveal an insider’s perspective. He shows the growing differences between the Ethiopian monarchy, soldiers, governmental officials, students, and American advisors. His analysis suggests that American officials mis-read the increasing cry for reforms that were born in the 1960s and came of age in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the United States placed unwavering confidence in Haile Selassie and apparently did not develop alliances with others within the empire.
Refusing to act on the demands of students placed the emperor and his American supporters in conflict with an increasing number of disaffected citizens. The military coup caught the United States by surprise. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s anti-west stance created problems for the Ford and Carter administrations, and encouraged the Reagan and Bush administrations to deny Ethiopia economic and military support.
While American historians consistently blame the fall of Haile Selassie on the military, Ethiopian scholars suggest that the soldiers were only the most powerful group responsible for the coup. Dissatisfaction was widespread and Ethiopian-wanted modernization in many ways threatened the concept of a feudal empire.
Metaferia argues that America lost the Cold War not only in Ethiopia, but throughout Africa. Rather than accept the military government, the United States committed all of its resources to destroy it and attempt to return Haile Selassie to the throne. Even when it was confirmed that the emperor was dead, American statesmen still wanted to topple the regime by any means necessary. Its covert actions often hurt the Ethiopian people. Suspicious of American intentions, the regime executed members of the monarchy and Selassie loyalists. Officials resigned and some sought asylum. American refusal to grant financial and food support contributed to economic problems and famine. And in response, the Derg reduced the number of American diplomats further alienating the two nations and supporting the government’s claims that America was not a friend of the Ethiopian people.
Soviet support for the Derg changed the balance of power in the Horn of Africa, forcing American leaders unable to regain Ethiopian favors, to look towards Eritrea and Somalia for new allies. These actions led to new military conflicts that pitted the United States against its former friend and ultimately disrupted the balance of African states long after the demise of the Soviet Union.
The final chapters analyze the post-military regime (1991 to the present) and the restoration of U.S.-Ethiopian relations. Although Ethiopia has supported a significant number of recent American efforts, a great deal of damage has been done. The conflicts in Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia reveal that American interests may be contradictory to the principles of democracy and freedom. The United States destroyed a longstanding mutual partnership and now, in many respects, has pitted Ethiopia against the best interests of the Horn of Africa, and consequently, itself.
Ethiopia and the United States is a masterful examination of African history. Through the use of key documents and personal insights, what might have seemed to be an ambitious work was actually simplified and perfected through Getachew Metaferia’s detailed framework and style. Ethiopia and the United States should be required reading for all students of diplomacy and American-African relations.
(Leslie Wilson is a Professor of history at Montclair University. The book is available at amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.)
Ethiopia’s tribal dictator Meles Zenawi and his Woyanne junta (the ruling party) have come up with a new gimmick trying to appear to be interested in what the people of Ethiopia have to say ahead of next month’s fake election. The people of Ethiopia, however, have already spoken five years ago at the May 2005 elections.
Woyanne has provided this following phone numbers and email address for the public to send questions and opinions to the genocidal murderer. The EPRDF (Woyanne) office issued a press release today with this contact info:
Mobile:
0912 85 82 88
0912 04 37 76
0912 09 07 97 and
0913 36 00 89
Land line:
0111 23 43 14
0111 23 41 17
0111 24 34 65
0111 23 39 94
Email: [email protected]
Ethiopian Review has one question to Meles: How much qat (ጫት) did you chew today?
By William Easterly and Laura Freschi | Aid Watch
Helen Epstein, author of The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing The Fight Against AIDS in Africa, has a stunning piece on aid to Ethiopia published in this month’s New York Review of Books.
Epstein argues that the main cause of fertile southern Ethiopia’s chronic food shortages—the so-called “green famine” —is Ethiopia’s toxic and repressive political system, presided over since 1991 by Meles Zenawi. While Meles placates donors and Western governments with speeches about fighting poverty and terrorism, he has committed gross human rights violations at home, rigged elections, killed political opponents, and imprisoned journalists and human rights activists. Epstein on Meles’ doublespeak:
There is a type of Ethiopian poetry known as “Wax and Gold” because it has two meanings: a superficial “wax” meaning, and a hidden “golden” one. During the 1960s, the anthropologist Donald Levine described how the popularity of “Wax and Gold” poetry provided insights into some of the northern Ethiopian societies from which Prime Minister Meles would later emerge…. “Wax and Gold”–style communication might give Ethiopians like Meles an advantage in dealing with Westerners, especially when the Westerners were aid officials offering vast sums of money to follow a course of development based on liberal democracy and human rights, with which they disagree.
Several Western donors responded to Meles’ more blatant repression by channeling aid directly to local authorities, cutting out the central government. We have argued before that this strategy doesn’t work when there is evidence—which Epstein provides more of—that local government officials are instrumental in election-fixing and using aid to award political supporters and punish dissidents. Now, donors can no longer even support Ethiopian civil society to oppose these human rights violations, since Meles’ government recently passed a law that makes it illegal for civil society organizations to accept foreign funds.
Epstein concludes powerfully:
In 2007, Meles called for an “Ethiopian renaissance” to bring the country out of medieval poverty, but the Renaissance he’s thinking of seems very different from ours. The Western Renaissance was partly fostered by the openness to new ideas created by improved transport and trade networks, mail services, printing technology, and communications—precisely those things Meles is attempting to restrict and control.
The Western Renaissance helped to democratize “the word” so that all of us could speak of our own individual struggles, and this added new meaning and urgency to the alleviation of the suffering of others. The problem with foreign aid in Ethiopia is that both the Ethiopian government and its donors see the people of this country not as individuals with distinct needs, talents, and rights but as an undifferentiated mass, to be mobilized, decentralized, vaccinated, given primary education and pit latrines, and freed from the legacy of feudalism, imperialism, and backwardness. It is this rigid focus on the “backward masses,” rather than the unique human person, that typically justifies appalling cruelty in the name of social progress.
Read the article in full here.
(TMCnet.com) — Ethiopia has the lowest overall teledensity in Africa. The population is approaching 90 million, but there are less than 1 million fixed lines in service, and a little more than 3.3 million mobile subscribers. The number of internet users is dismal below 500,000 at the end of 2009. Communications service provision is reserved for the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), one of the few monopoly providers left on the African continent.
There are indications that the Ethiopian government will finally start to liberalise the telecommunications sector, and it has already appointed a French partner on a revenue sharing basis to assist with the management and technical operations of the incumbent ETC. Liberalisation will create a substantial set of investment opportunities in the ICT sector. It is expected that the liberalisation agenda will include allowing competition into the mobile segment. Key uncertainties are the timing and scale of liberalisation that will take place, but it is widely recognised that before the country sees any of the benefits of widespread communications access, it will need to allow the private sector to take a prominent role in developing the market.
By 2014 the number of fixed line subscribers in Ethiopia is expected to increase to 4.4 million, representing an annual average growth rate of 38% p.a. The number of mobile subscribers is expected to grow at 43% per year over the period, reaching almost 20 million by 2014. Even at these high growth levels the overall teledensity will be less than 25% in 2014, indicating that the market will be nowhere near saturation. The number of internet users will jump to 12 million, but internet subscribers will still be low at 1.4 million at the end of 2014. Ethiopia presents an opportunity for investors to reap vast returns as the liberalisation agenda gets underway.
In this report we provide a comprehensive analysis of prospects for investment in ICTs in Ethiopia. Forecasts are provided for mobile, fixed and internet usage. Investment opportunities are identified.
Executive Summary: The Ethiopian telecommunications liberalization agenda sets framework for growth and investment The telecommunications market in Ethiopia is on the verge of massive growth, leading to a wide range of investment opportunities in telecommunications and downstream information and communications technology (ICT) segments, according to a new study published by Technology Strategies International in partnership with BroadGroup TMT Ventures. The report, titled Investment Opportunities in the ICT Sector in Ethiopia: 2010, predicts that by 2011 the state-owned incumbent, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) will have a privatisation timetable in place, and that liberalisation of the mobile market will take place shortly after that.
The Ethiopian Government recognizes that the country is being left behind in terms of digital inclusion, and urgently needs to address this if it wants to reap the benefits that other African countries have demonstrated from embracing ICTs, notes Christie Christelis, President of Technology Strategies International. It may also become an important political issue in the next elections.
While the Ethiopian Government is on record saying that it will not hasten the liberalization process, and will not succumb to pressure from the international community to liberalize its banking and telecommunications sectors in order to accede to the WTO, Christelis believes that there is neither any reason for, nor any benefit from delaying the process further.
Liberalization of the telecommunications environment will create a raft of ICT investment opportunities in Ethiopia, Christelis says. The Chinese have already recognized the potential of Ethiopia and are building an electronics manufacturing facility to address the high growth expected in demand for handsets and accessories. They are also providing supplier financing in certain telecommunications investments in order to address the shortage of domestic capital.
The report predicts that over the next five years the number of mobile subscribers in Ethiopia will grow at an annual rate of 43% (CAGR), to reach almost 20 million subscribers by 2014.
Christelis says that Ethiopia will provide a range of excellent investment opportunities for foreign investors interested in the ICT sector, but warns that the window will not be open indefinitely. He predicts that the next four years will be critical in shaping the Ethiopian ICT sectors future and will provide high return opportunities for foreign investors that have the risk tolerance, and ability, to capitalize on the coming surge in ICT-related markets.
The 37 page report provides a comprehensive review, analysis and forecast of investment opportunities in the ICT sector in Ethiopia. It analyses the investment environment in Ethiopia and in identifies key providers of capital. It highlights growth segments in the Ethiopian telecommunications market in the context of important developments in the economy and in the political environment. Detailed forecasts are presented for fixed line communications, mobile communications and internet usage. Specific investment opportunities are identified and categorized in terms of scale of investment.
By Terri Hathaway
The Gibe 3 Dam and Ethiopia’s coming elections have something powerful in common: the silencing of dissent at any cost. Ethiopia’s government has systematically developed a culture of fear that silences any dissent of the ruling party and its policies. In villages, people fear what they say or do could be reported to officials by their neighbors.
As Gibe 3 Dam is a priority project of Prime Minister Zenawi’s government, anyone seen to be critical of the dam – including project-affected people asserting their legal rights – is seen as an enemy. Up to 63 local associations in South Omo Zone have been suspended, pre-emptively shutting down forums for discussing local issues. The government has denied licenses for community radio stations, and two-way radios are considered contraband. One Ethiopian was arrested for unknowingly wearing a Gibe 3 protest shirt borrowed from a cousin across the Kenyan border. Worse, a translator was reportedly arrested for treason after helping independent researchers communicate with affected communities. Other translators have been harassed and intimidated, helping drive the government’s greatest silencing tool: its culture of fear.
One month from today, Ethiopia will hold its first national elections since 2005, when hundreds of protestors and opposition leaders were beaten, thrown in jail and killed. Several opposition leaders are still in jail, including Birtukan Mideksa, one of Africa’s most notable political prisoners. She was pardoned in 2007 but re-arrested and returned to prison in 2008. Her health is suffering immensely and she has been denied access to medical personnel.
Last September, the International Crisis Group predicted a violent crackdown in the run-up to next month’s elections. Sadly, the crackdown seems to be swinging into full force. In March, Aregawi Gebre Yohannes, an opposition candidate, was stabbed to death in what was believed to be a political murder. Earlier this month, another opposition activist, Biyansa Daba, died a week after being brutally attacked at home.
Any skeptic of Zenawi’s silencing methods should read Human Rights Watch‘s new report, “One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure: Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia.” The report documents how the ruling party has used its near-total control of local and district administrations to undermine opponents’ livelihoods through withholding services such as agricultural inputs, micro-credit, and job opportunities. New legal restrictions limit the ability of independent Ethiopian groups to monitor the elections; to date, only government-affiliated organisations have been licensed. A recent electoral code of conduct for the media forbids interviewing voters, candidates and officials on Election Day, while observers are barred from making any statements until election results are announced.
The ruling party is also shutting down the media. Ethiopia’s most prominent independent weekly, Addis Neger, shut down in December 2009 after several editors feared arrest and fled the country. Last month, the US State Department criticized Zenawi’s government after it admitted to jamming Voice of America’s broadcasts. VOA officials say their Amharic broadcasts were also jammed in 2005 and 2008 around elections.
Gibe 3 Dam and the election have something else in common: donors who may overlook Ethiopia’s fear factor unless we make enough noise. The International Crisis Group believes that the international community should take Ethiopia’s governance problems much more seriously and that donors must convince Ethiopia to improve current standards of governance and promote democratic reform or risk destabilisation in the Horn of Africa. International Rivers believes that donors must also withhold funds from Gibe 3 Dam. Real development does not come at the cost of human rights and the silencing of dissent.
What you can do
* Don’t let donors support this destructive dam under this repressive regime. Sign the petition to Stop Gibe 3 Dam. Read the Gibe 3 Dam Fact Sheet for more information.
* Watch the media for coverage of the runup to Ethiopia’s May 23 elections and the government crackdown on dissent. Tell your government officials to withhold support of this repressive regime.
(Since joining International Rivers in 2004, Terri Hathaway has visited dam-affected communities and NGOs in Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. She lives in Yaounde, Cameroon.)
