The selling of Ethiopia to the highest bidder. By Yilma Bekele
Actually that statement might not be true. We do know our country is being sold but we have no idea if the bidding has been open or closed. We have sold almost all of Gambella, we have leased half of Afar and Oromia has been parceled out bit by bit. Our Beer factories are under new owners, our gold mines belong to the fake Ethiopian sheik, Telephone is under the Chinese and our Airlines is looking for a suitor. Have we always looked for outsiders to own us?
Not really when you consider that we celebrated the victory at the battle of Adwa a few weeks back and that was the mother of all wars that made it clear this African country is not for sale. We might not have contributed much to the industrial revolution but we did manage to rely on our own ingenuity to follow along and do things our own way. You might not believe this but there was a time when Ethiopians actually used to be involved in making stuff from scratch. You think I am making things up don’t you? I don’t blame you because today you cannot even come up with one name that stands out as an Ethiopian entrepreneur, go getter or someone that shines like the north star based solely on his own sweat and blood.
The things that were accomplished by earlier Ethiopians are all around us but we don’t see them. All the things the current government brags about have their roots in the yester years they so much condemn and brush off. I don’t know where to start but here we go. Let us start with hospitals. Bella Haile Selassie (Bella), Leelt Tshay (armed Forces), Paulos, Haile Selassie Hospital (Yekati 12), Balcha, Ghandi, Tikur Anbessa, Ras Desta, Minilik etc. The vast majority of the doctors were Ethiopians, the hospitals were clean, well equipped and you don’t even have to take your own sheets and blankets.
How about Hotels? Ethiopia, Ghion, Wabi Shebele, Ras, Bekele Molla were the premier destinations. They were owned and operated by Ethiopians. When it comes to Ethiopian Airlines the Pilots were proud Ethiopians and the technicians were the envy of Africa. The Imperial government built the Airlines from scratch. Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a partner until we were able to train and staff our own and we did manage to do that.
If we talk about agriculture we did manage to establish the Sugar estates of Metehara and Wonji not to mention Setit Humera, the wheat and corn fields of Arsi, the fiber plants of Sidama and the cotton fields of Awash Valley are testimonial to our ingenuity. The sixties saw the emergence of the new educated Ethiopians that raised the bar of excellence.
The establishment of Africa Hall was how Africans showed respect to our Emperor and our old history when they choose Addis Abeba as the head quarter for the continent. The University at sadist Kilo was a gift to his people by the Emperor and it was a spectacular success. All the teachers were highly educated Ethiopians and the graduates were the pride of our country.
Why am I discussing such subject today? It is because two items reported by the media caught my eye a few days back. Both are an assault on our sovereignty and our ability to grow our own economy by Ethiopians for Ethiopians. Heineken a Dutch conglomerate is building the biggest brewery in Ethiopia and Guangdong Chuan Hui Group from China is given 41,000 Sq. meter of land to construct hotel and industrial complex. The way the story is being reported we should be jumping with joy. What could be better than those two benevolent multi nationals investing so much in our poor destitute country?
Is that how we should look at it? Is there another aspect to this story? In order to see the pros and con of the question posed In front of us it would have been nice if there has been a nationwide discussion to see if the plan makes sense when it comes to our homeland. That is how smart decisions are made. Open and vibrant nationwide discussion regarding such important issues that impact our national economy and our people’s well-being assures a better outcome.
That usually is not the case in our country. There are no checks and balances. There is no independent legislative body and the judiciary is a government tool. A single party the TPLF controls all and everything in the country. Our political leaders have no faith in the ability of the people to know what is good for them. That is why they approach their job as being a ‘baby sitter’ and are constantly fretting about what the people hear and read. Decisions are made by a few TPLF politburo members to be approved by the rubber stamp Parliament. Anyone that questions such a decision is branded as enemy of the people and dealt with.
Let us start with our beer story. You know beer is nothing but European Tella. It is bottled fancy and costs a little bit more. How long ago do you think we acquired the idea of brewing for a larger crowd? Eighty years ago my friend! St George brewery was started in 1922. Meta Abo Brewery was founded in 1963. Meta Abo was a partnership between government and private capital and started with a base capital of 2million Birr. The military junta nationalized both and the current TPLF Woyane regime inherited them with the rest of Ethiopia. What do you think these successive regimes did with our own old industry and land? Did they build on what was started? Did they reinvest the profit to make the enterprises bigger and better? Did they run our industries, enterprises and farms in a responsible and judicious manner?
Both St. George and Meta Abo are no more Ethiopian enterprises. BGI (an internationally acclaimed Brewing Company that operates in many countries.??) bought St George in 1998 for US 10 million ‘through foreign direct investment’(??) Meta Ambo was sold to Diego Industries-a British congalmorate for US 225 million. Heineken a Dutch multi-national acquired 18% of Bedele and Harar breweries for US 163 million in 2011. Raya Brewery an idea that has not materialized yet but promoted by Lt. General Tsadkan W.Tensai and investors such as Yemane (Jamaica) Kidane and other TPLF officials sold 25% interest to BGI for 650 million Br and invited Brewtech a German company as a partner.
As you can see the TPLF regime collected close to US 400 million from the sale of our home grown breweries. By all imagination that is chump change when you consider the ownership is lost and the profit for eternity belongs to the foreigners. Is this a good way to grow a national economy? Has it been done before or is this another of that failed ‘revolutionary democracy’ pipe dream?
BGI, Diego or Heineken are investing in our country to realize profit for their shareholders. What is our country getting out of this? The beer manufacturing business is a highly automated enterprise so it is not about job creation. Most if not all of the high paying managerial jobs will be occupied by the parent company. The malt, barley and other ingredients are imported and are considered a trade secret. We all know about creative accounting thus I am sure our country does not even benefit from the profit because the bookkeeping is rigged to minimize taxes.
Let us not even think of technology transfer since we cannot learn what we have already mastered. Remember we have been brewing beer since 1922. I will tell you what we got out of this unequal relationship. We as a people got royally screwed. The TPLF party officials got paid plenty for their pimping effort. The regime in its insatiable appetite for foreign currency bought a few months of respite to purchase oil, wheat, cooking oil etc. to postpone its inevitable collapse.
There are certain things we know how a growing economy with a nationalist government operates. We have seen how China, India, Malaysia, Brazil and other emerging economies handled their growth potential. They use what is known as subsidy to protect their infant industries from foreign predators. They allowed investment where technology transfer will bring benefit to their people but shielded their home grown industries from foreign competition.
Why do you think the TPLF bosses are interested in selling our sovereignty? I doubt it is because they are anti-Ethiopian even though the late evil PM used to suffer from inferiority complex when it comes to central highlanders. I believe it is because of their ‘get rich quick’ philosophy. They are in a hurry to accumulate before their Ponzi scheme comes crashing down. According to the UN billions of dollars are leaving our country. They are buying properties in the US and Europe, sending their children to expensive schools abroad and vacationing in exotic places with the money they steal from our country.
What are we the victims doing about this rape and pillage of our resources and the degradation of our national pride? I am afraid other than insistently talking there is nothing more most of us are doing about it. Why do you think that is so? I could think of a few things but ignorance comes to mind first and foremost. Our ignorance prevents us from connecting the dots and looking at the bigger picture. Our misplaced pride does not allow us to listen to others and learn to be able to formulate better solutions to our problems.
Today we have a population that is not familiar with its history. Sixty four percent (64%) of our people are under twenty five years old while twenty nine percent (29%) are under the age of 54 years. We have a toxic population on our hands. Those under twenty five grew up under the Woyane regime where being an Ethiopian is taken as a liability. While those under fifty four are the result of the Derge era of undermining religion, family, and stability. Ninety three (93%) of our population is a fertile ground for evil Woyane to plant shame, doubt and insecurity about being Ethiopian.
It is this population that is sitting on the side and cheering the selling of their country. For most people what bothers them is not what is lost but they spend endless energy to get a piece of the action. In Ethiopia stealing, lying, being part of a criminal enterprise is encouraged by the regime. When the recently dead Meles Zenawi said ‘even being a thief requires being smart’ he was giving a green light to his cadres and the population at large. The so called Diaspora is the number one enabler of the criminal Woyane machine. They use their new found riches to bribe Woyane so they could acquire stolen land to build their flimsy unsustainable condominiums and spend endless nights worrying if the next highest bidder will in turn take it away in broad day light.
This is exactly the reason we are having a problem forming a united front to get rid of this cancerous body in our midst. This is the reason even in exile we are unable to form a democratic, inclusive and worthy association that will benefit the many. The ninety three percent are in need of education in civic affairs and a dose of what it means to love your neighbor as you would love yourself.
May be it is the lords way of teaching us little humility and humbleness as he did with the children of Israel when he left them to wonder for forty years in the wilderness so they know what is in their heart. It is a choice we have-to be humble or perish due to pride.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201107051138.html?page=2
http://www.diageo.com/en-ie/newsmedia/pages/resource.aspx?resourceid=1168
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/03/07/heineken-to-build-ethiopias-biggest-beer-factory/#axzz2MxqCwlH1
http://allafrica.com/stories/201107051138.html
East Europe suffered under Soviet domination for over fifty years. While West Europe was marching forward, East Europe was engulfed in darkness and hopelessness. The Arabs with all their vast population and abundant natural resources stumbled around for so long they were considered people of no consequences. The East Europeans emerged from their forced slavery and are now trying to rebuild a new reality. The Arabs are showing signs of life. From the shores of the Atlantic all the way to the Indian Ocean Arab awakening is the talk of the planet.
As usual Africa is acting dead. The ‘Dark Continent’ as they aptly named us is still in slumber mode. It still is the playground of the buffoon, the mentally unstable, the psychopath and the pure evil. The Mugabe’s, Museveni’s, Bashir’s, Zenawi’s, Afeweki’s are the faces of Africa. They have been around so long that it is difficult to remember what came before their rude appearance. We Ethiopians have contributed our fair share to this collective madness. We are not innocent bystanders but rather one of the stars of this tragic show. Nobody thought we would sink this low in such a short time. Here we are at the bottom of the barrel.
Do you want me to remind you of the times the name Ethiopia evoked pride and hope? Believe me it is true. Our country is so old and our people so wise that we even have a mention in the Bible. I know it is difficult to top that but I will humbly mention our earthly accomplishments too. The Axumite Kingdom is considered one of the four Great powers along with Persia, Rome and China around 4th century BC. We are the only country in Africa not to be colonized by the Europeans. We were equal founders in the establishment of the League of Nations the forerunner to the current United Nations. Our Emperor played a key role in establishing the Organization of Africa Unity with Addis Ababa as its Headquarters. There was a time when Emperor HaileSelassie hosted warring factions in our capital and he was listened to.
That is why I believe our ancient land will usher in the people’s uprising that is shaking our neighborhood into Black Africa. We are ripe and ready. We are overdue. I know it. Deep inside you know it too. The Ethiopian dictatorship understands the volatility of the situation. At this moment it is operating on crisis mode. The regime is experimenting with so many responses it is actually possible the right hand does not know what the left is doing. That is the problem with occupiers. They end up being strangers in their own country. They saw themselves differently. They felt they were entitled. They felt safe inside the false wall they built. Looks like the chicken are coming home to roost. How pathetic!
It is becoming obvious the situation in Ethiopia shows all the signs of readiness for upheaval. It has reached what in physics is known as ‘critical mass.’ In politics the current situation has all what is needed to force a new reality to take place. Be it positive or negative something is bound to happen and that is independent of any ones wish.
The famine/hunger/ food shortage whatever it is called is the main catalyst. The Ethiopian government does not have enough foreign currency to buy food for its people. The wrong polices of the last twenty years have not been able to solve this lingering problem. Due to the worsening situation in Somalia food donor’s attention is not focused on our country. The regime is in no position to admit famine has arrived. It will be suicidal. Unfortunately it cannot be hidden or ignored. The ferenjis are beginning to ring the alarm bells but very cautiously. They do not want to upset their ‘anti-terrorist’ partner. Like it or not hungry people soon turn to angry people. Mobs have been known to do strange things when outraged. It is critical we find a way to channel this raw anger into positive direction for the sake of all of us.
The second condition feeding our critical mass political situation is the general melt down of the economy. Officially inflationist 40.6% for what it is worth. You know the actual figure is close to double that. This New Year the price of basic goods and necessities was beyond even professional citizen’s standard. Cow/Bull was eleven thousand Bir, Sheep fifteen hundred, Chicken one hundred twenty five, Teff one thousand five hundred, red onion six Bir per kilo, garlic one hundred Bir per kilo, butter one hundred twenty five per kilo, berbere sixty per kilo and so forth. Most of our people are going to bed hungry. The children and the elderly suffer the most. Even those who have jobs cannot afford to feed their family.
The third ingredient is unemployment. There is no private sector so to speak of in Ethiopia. The government is the largest employer in the country. That is done for control. Realistically it is not a good or efficient economic model. When you consider the government is broke thus unable to meet the needs of a growing population it fair to say it is sitting on a time bomb. Idleness breeds’ anti-social behavior. The regime tried using drugs like Kat and televised sports to divert but it can only go so far.
The fourth factor is the dwindling remittances and Diaspora investment. Remittances have definitely shown dramatic decrease due to the international economic situation. The Middle East is in turmoil and the West is closing its doors to outsiders. The double digit ‘growth’ was not due to increase in economic production but due to remittances from the Diaspora and aid money from the ferenjis. It was an illusion built on sand. All those condominiums and shopping centers are colossal waste. When the artificially inflated real estate prices plummet the door is not wide enough for those that want to exit.
The fifth catalyst will be the situation in the North Africa, The Middle East, and the general mood of the Western enablers. The Arab Spring is known to all in Ethiopia. They are familiar with this type of situation. No matter how hard the regime tries to pretend there is nothing odd going on, the eyes and ears of our people are following the drama intently. Although our information system is carefully managed by the TPLF blanket they covered our country with, it is full of holes. News gets in. The Western enablers are confused. Their ‘smart’ intelligence system did not even see the Arab Spring train pulling into the station. Their banana republic puddles are falling one after another. Mubarak’s fall was spectacular. Now they are cautious showing any kind of fondness to the rest of their puppies. Swim or sink the dogs have entered uncharted waters. One or two will survive but most will be history. Meles is trying to avoid that fate. He is trying to cancel his reservation at Kaliti Presidential suite.
I kept the beast for last. I am delighted to say the nature of the TPLF regime is the absolute best carrier of the fissionable material for our critical mass to reach its tipping point and deliver a brand new reality to our beautiful homeland. What more can you ask when you are given a virus that carries its own destruction code embedded. Our precious regime is doing that as we speak. The madness started about two months ago and it is continuing at an accelerated pace. Meles and company have completely and absolutely arrived at the conclusion that no matter what change is coming. They are swimming against the tide.
We are lucky that it does not require a lot to create panic in the TPLF politburo. They have a tendency to lash out blindly and irrationally. They are so used to bullying that violence is their first response for any new situation. They started by imprisoning media figures. Awramba Times deputy editor Wubeshet Taye and Feteh Magazine Reeyot Alemu were arrested on vague charges and kept in isolation. Their next victims were political leaders. Bekele Gerba of OFDM and Olbana Lelisa of OPC and twenty-nine individuals were arrested for being suspected of belonging to Oromo Liberation Front.
The arrest of Ato Debebe Eshetu, Ato Andualem Arage Secretary of UDJ and reporter Eskender Nega is the latest in this high stake drama. All are accused of the usual crimes of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and belonging to terrorist organizations. As is customary they will be kept in isolation. Shimels Kemal will promise to produce evidence to prove their crime.
Why are Meles and company doing all this? I assure you it is not because it is fun. It is the only thing they know. They have been doing it for twenty years. Although both the domestic scene and the international situation are presenting a completely new reality the regime’s response seems unchanged. It is highly possible that they have decided there is no other palatable option left to them. That is the problem with criminal enterprises, they cannot cut and disappear, they carry too much baggage. I believe that is TPLF problem and we will set it aside.
If you notice closely they pick their victims carefully. TPLF goes for impact. They create big waves with big news. Ethiopia is one big TPLF prison. The ones we hear are about the big fish. For every Debebe, Andualem, Eskender, Bekele and Olbana there are hundred nameless incarcerated all over the country. This is the way they have been operating for twenty years. Remember Kinijit leaders, did you forget Teddy Afro or Judge Bertukan. They are all symbolic figures to send the message to the rest of us. It is in your face challenge. They are saying to us what are you going to do about it? The truth is it does not move their agenda one inch forward. Their empty bravado isolates them further and increases their paranoia.
We see hunger and we are sad. We see the hopelessness of our people and we grieve. We see the bravery of our neighbors in Egypt, Libya and Yemen and we see hope. When are we going to move from thinking to acting? When are we going to transform our apathy to a meaningful action? When are we going to stop crying for our mother and instead roll up our sleeves and smash the pain factory known as TPLF inc? Someone once said ‘acts of bravery don’t always take place in a battlefield.’ You don’t have to be in Ethiopia to fight TPLF injustice. We all did not go to South Africa to fight Apartheid. South Africans all did not pick up the gun to fight the unjust system. Those that wish freedom and justice fight from where ever they are.
We ask our people to take matter into their hands and smash the TPLF system wherever it rears its head in our precious land. TPLF headquarters, TPLF businesses, TPLF arms of coercion should be targeted and neutralized. All TPLF command and control centers should be made into battlefield. War has been declared on our people it is only fitting that we in turn make our country hell for those that want to impose their rotten, ethnic based rule on us. I am sure our people will turn fear into strength and show the few the power of the many. The time for tears is over. It is time to give a taste of their own medicine back to these ungrateful occupiers.
We hope to hear good news in the coming days and weeks. We hope to hear Meles squealing like a terrified pig from his hiding place under the palace. This is not idle talk or empty wish. It is going to happen because both the local and international situations are conducive to getting rid of tyrants. We each have a choice. We can sit at home or our favorite coffee houses and talk or we can rise up and complement the battle cry of our people. We can criticize those that are doing what they believe to be right or we can join the freedom train and make the battle quick and less painful.
The various Security personnel, Federal Police chiefs, Kebele leaders we want you to know that we are watching your every move. We are recording your every bad deed. We want you to know that Meles and family will try to finagle their way out of the mess they created but you will be left high and dry to fend for yourself. I was just following order has never been a good defense.
How to manage and resolve conflict has always been our Achilles Heel. That is part of the reason why we stumble from one crisis to another. Last week was a perfect example of an attempt to try to find out a reasonable solution to a problem that arose in our region here in Northern California. I hope it will give us an insight into an exercise in positive behavior that will probably end up in a win-win situation. It made me realize that the scorched earth policy we seem to favor when it comes to resolving differences between us is not a winning strategy and it has not brought us any positive results.
The public transit system serving our area (BART) has been facing mounting criticism from the public due to the strong arm tactics used by the Transit Police. A few weeks ago BART police fatally shot an individual during an arrest. People were not happy about that. A public demonstration was held, a BART station was temporarily closed, and rail service disrupted. The organizers who were using social media as a tool to come together vowed to return the following Friday to continue their public demonstration.
How BART responded to the imminent gathering of angry people is what brought this important discussion into the forefront. BART management decided to meet the threat by pulling the plug on cell phone service for a portion of its stations to disrupt electronic communication. That act completely changed the nature of the problem. Folks wanted to know under whose authority those in charge are allowed to shut down a communications system. It opened a lively constitutional discussion regarding the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.
Public discussions were held to define the problem. Experts in Constitutional Law were called to clarify the issue. BART board of Directors called a hearing to discuss the ramifications. The people demanded clarity. The core issue became how the First Amendment of the US Constitution was interpreted in action. I will present you the text of the First Amendment as well as two opinions by experts on the Constitution.
Here is the text of the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
According to Michael Risher of ACLU of Northern California “To be clear, the First Amendment doesn’t protect the right of people to disrupt train service, and the government may impose reasonable restrictions on protest. But they can’t simply shut down a park because they don’t want an unpopular group to come protest there; they shouldn’t be shutting down a communications network just because they don’t like what’s being said on it. That’s contrary to the First Amendment.”
Professor Eugene Volokh of University of California at Los Angles (UCLA) response was “As to the federal constitution, based on press accounts of what the facts are, it seems to be that BART was acting within its constitutional power. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea… but the important thing is that BART was turning off cell phone hardware that was on its property that it either owned or had control over. That’s very different from the government shutting down private networks or interfering with communications on private property or for that matter on streets and parks, which are treated similar to private property in this respect under the First Amendment.”
Watching the discussion and trying to digest the information to make a reasonable assessment has been a teachable moment for me. I noticed the language that the participants used to make their respective points were measured and non-provocative. There were no good guys and bad guys, but people trying to resolve a common problem. There was no anger and none questioned the motives of their opponent. The task at hand was to try to find a lasting solution and avoid future problems. BART directors were not vilified while their decision making process was brought under public scrutiny. This type of environment creates a fertile ground for good ideas to blossom. It brings out the best in all of us and enhances possibility of a positive resolution of the problem. Might I add that the existence of a free and equal environment is what made it all this possible?
I believe that is what is lacking in our social discourse. A civilized way of handling conflicting ideas to be able to reach a reasonable and common ground. Why do I think we suffer from this disease of rigidness and lack of respect for other people’s ideas and opinions? I have two examples of the weakness of our system when it comes to dealing with ideas different than our own.
I wrote an opinion regarding the wisdom of our independent Web sites disseminating interviews with Shaleka Mengistu. I was not dealing with the individual’s right to grant an interview. I believe that is a different issue. Here in California the law does not allow a criminal to profit from his misdeeds. I understand the Shaleka has written a book and part of the interview was to market the product. My issue was the fact of our inability to say enough! That was what I questioned. On the other hand, the discussion that ensued was full of insults, hatred and unreasonable diatribe. I found out folks just don’t disagree and let it go but they take the extra step of questioning my lineage, my integrity and everything associated with me. Unfortunately, the original issue gets lost in this acrimonious festival.
Some said I should stop being angry, a few have forgiven him and they want all of us to do so while others championed his right to speak. I do not agree at all. I believe anger is a reasonable response. Remember, we are the victims. I think a certain amount of disgust is good for the psyche; otherwise, one is bound to be treated like a door mat. You know everybody stepping on you kind. ____ I almost said that is so like us, but I won’t. I will consider the possibility of forgiveness when the criminal shows remorse for his actions and confesses for his untold crimes. I also believe it is my responsibility to speak for my dead people and it is not my place to forgive on their behalf. I truly believe the Shaleka does not have any right to speak. He lost that right when he committed crimes against humanity. Justice demands that he be put on trial, and be hanged until he is dead. His death will serve as a deterrent to future tyrants. That will leave a lasting impression on how not to treat Abeshas. I also believe that asking the Shaleka to advise us in the intricate art of Nation building is the same as asking Ato Meles’s advice on economic growth and the best policy to achieve that goal. Good luck my clueless friends.
The next example is the discussion that has been going around the question of creating a united front against the common enemy and whom to include in this tent. I am assuming we all believe that our country is being mis-governed by the TPLF mafia and that we all want to change that. Please bear in mind the current abusers have been in power for twenty years and we have tried different methods to get rid of them. No one can accuse us of not trying. Failing yes, but definitely most have been doing their best to get rid of this cancer. Reasonable people will look at this situation and try to find out why a very tiny minority of criminals have succeeded in routing the many freedom seekers.
Well some are trying to find the formula that will succeed where others have failed. As the concept implies ‘United Front’ means an amalgamation of those that have a common goal and their attempt to find a way to work together. Organizations have a life of their own. They have their own peculiarities, needs, strengths, and weaknesses, and that is why it has been difficult to achieve unity. It is difficult but not impossible. It has been done before by others and they have succeeded. Why are we having this difficulty time and time again? Is our enemy that formidable or are we that dysfunctional? Is this our first instance to try to unite together, or have we done it before? Is our goal so unappealing that we have problems attracting the many, or does our recurring inability and failure turn people off? We have to mull over all of these are reasonable questions and come up with answers so we can move forward.
Some organizations are in the process of working on such issues to come up with answers that will enhance our ability to confront our abusers. It seems like the folks of Ginbot7, Oromo Liberation Front, Afar Liberation Front and Ogaden Liberation Front are in deep discussion to find a common ground. I am sure the TPLF mafia group is not happy with such a prospect. Reasonably so too! The part I find a little puzzling is the anger by those that are supposedly working to get rid of the same Woyane cancer. One would think they will be overjoyed others are getting together to help them in their common quest. It is even rational to think that they will probe ways of becoming part of such group and try to influence decisions in a democratic and equal manner.
True to our character a few organizations are contorting into knots and showing signs of hysteria beyond reason. Some claim to love Ethiopia more than others and are willing to destroy it to save it. A few are purity police and are constantly on guard to avoid pollution by others whoever they are. The Amhara super Nationalists and the Oromo steroid enhanced separatists are the two interesting groups to watch. When you consider it is these two groups that will greatly benefit from the demise of the mafia system, it is sort of difficult to rationally understand their respective hysteria.
For some of us without any ethnic identity other than being an Ethiopian the whole exercise is a little difficult to digest. For a Nation that is as old as the universe, it is a disconcerting to think today’s arrivals who are questioning the work of their forefathers. When you consider the fact that our country was there before others and by all acceptable standards have a set of internationally recognized boundary; why its own citizens are trying to tear that apart is not clear to many. When the current rulers are in the process of holding a garage sale of our fertile land, and when millions of our people are facing the scourge of famine, is this a good time to come together and avoid catastrophe or revert back into drawing imaginary lines on imaginary Oromia, Tigrai or Amhara enclave?
The lesson I learned from the BART incident in our area is that reasonable people do disagree, but reasonable people hold a quiet and balanced discussion to come up with a solution that might not satisfy all, but that has a reasonable chance of being accepted by many. The point of the exercise was not to win at any cost but find a solution that will bring peace and harmony in the community. All the parties were willing to listen to each other’s concerns and addressed the issue in an even handed manner. There were no losers or winners in this equation. Why couldn’t we do that? Why do we allow the nay Sayers and the belligerent amongst us to hijack the issue and define it in such a way that states that either I am for or against it. Can I be left alone to find a common ground where I can work with all Ethiopians to bring peace, harmony and love to all her children? That is not too much to ask, is it?
Please note that this discussion for good or bad is held on a free Diaspora Media. Here we are free to discuss any issue in a respectful and reasonable manner. Here ideas are not feared or censored. Just because I disagree with some, the sky is not going to fall. I believe we all are intelligent enough to decide what is good for ourselves without undermining others. Our people in Ethiopia cannot do that. There is a communications department that decides what people should view or hear. The Ethiopian government spends millions to block, jam or interfere with free flow of ideas. When our children are hungry the government spends money on technology to keep them dead or alive in the dark. A few decide for eighty million people. Being silent about that is acceptance of abuse. It is wrong. Encouraging our independent Web sites, giving what we could to ESAT and keeping an open mind and a positive outlook on the discussion for unity is what our country demands. That is if you care.
It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The Black Horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi’s regime denied there was any famine. Only ‘minor problems’ of spot shortages of food which will ‘be soon brought under control,’ it said dismissively. The regime boldly predicted a 7-10 percent increase in the annual harvest over 2007. Simon Mechale, head of the country’s Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, proudly declared: ‘Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security.’… Zenawi’s regime has been downplaying and double-talking the famine situation. It is too embarrassed to admit the astronomical number of people facing starvation in a country which, by the regime’s own accounts, is bursting at the seams from runaway economic development.
I concluded with a rhetorical question:
Images of the human wreckage of Ethiopia’s rampaging famine will soon begin to make dramatic appearances on television in Western living rooms. The Ethiopian government will be out in full force panhandling the international community for food aid. Compassion fatigued donors may or may not come to the rescue. Ethiopians, squeezed between the Black Horseman [Scriptural metaphor for famine] and the Noisome Beast [Scriptural metaphor for evil beasts that terrify the land], will once again cry out to the heavens in pain and humiliation as they await for handouts from a charitable world. Isn’t that a low down dirty shame for a proud people to bear?
In January 2010, I followed up with another commentary titled Ethiopia’s “Silently” Creeping Famine challenging the “famine deniers.” At the time, Mitiku Kassa, a top official of Zenawi’s regime had declared: ‘In the Ethiopian context, there is no hunger, no famine… It is baseless [to claim hunger or famine], it is contrary to the situation on the ground. It is not evidence-based. The government is taking action to mitigate the problems.’ Kassa issued assurances that his regime had launched a food security program to ‘enable chronic food insecure households attain sufficient assets and income level to get out of food insecurity and improve their resilience to shocks…and halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.’ Zenawi was entirely dismissive: “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch — emergencies, but no famines.”
It is now July 2011 and the Black Horseman is standing at the gate. No more “emergencies”, just plain old-fashioned famine. This time it is the international aid agencies that are frantically sounding the 5-alarm famine. They warn that if donors do not provide substantial emergency food aid to 12 million people now, there will be famine of Biblical-proportions in Ethiopia and other neighboring countries unseen in the last 60 years. UNICEF warns that “millions of children and women are at risk from death and disease unless a rapid and speedy response is put into action.”
The silently creeping famine was visible to anyone who bothered to study the periodic reports of the aid agencies (and read between the lines) and regularly monitored the “famine early warning systems” over the past few years. But until now, no aid agency or donor country could force itself to use the “F” word. Political correctness had trumped the truth and the welfare of millions. The very aid agencies that are now frothing at the mouth sounding the alarm of a doomsday famine were describing the problem for the last few years in terms of “severe malnutrition”, “food shortages”, “acute food security phases” “food insecurity, scarcity, insufficiency and deprivation”, “chronic dietary deficiency”, “endemic malnutrition” and other clever phrases. They simply could not call a spade a spade. But famine by any other name is still famine. The “severe malnutrition” of yesterday has become today’s famine silently spreading to consume 12 million people.
Apocalypse in 40 Years?
Lately, everybody has been talking about facts and figures. It’s been all about percentages. Meles Zenawi says between now and 2015 Ethiopia’s economy will be growing at 12-15 percent a year. Recently, he told his party members: “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.” That plan is anchored in what Zenawi calls “agricultural development–led industrialization” (ADLI), which purports to focus intensively on agriculture by technologically boosting the low level of productivity of small scale farmers and commercially linking them to the non-agricultural (industrial) sector. Zenawi says by 2015 extreme poverty in Ethiopia will be cut by 50 percent along with hunger (“severe malnutrition”) consistent with the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. The Ethiopian currency has been devalued by 20 percent over the past year. The annual inflation rate is galloping at 34.7 percent according to official reports (likely much higher). The International Monetary Fund predicts Ethiopia will likely have economic growth of 7.5 percent in 2011. On the political side, Zenawi said he won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent. But lost in the stacks of fantasy percentages is a little big 3 percent that will ultimately determine the survivability of the Ethiopia people.
Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau had frightening predictions for Ethiopia, Nigeria and India. By 2050, India will be the most populous nation in the world, bypassing China sometime in the mid-2020s. Nigeria’s current population of 166 million will explode to 402 million. In just four decades, Ethiopia’s population will more than triple to 278 million, placing that country in the top 10 most populous countries in the world.
Ethiopia’s population growth has been spiraling upwards for decades. In 1967, the population was 23.5 million. It increased to 51 million in 1990 and by 2003, it had reached 68 million. In 2008, that number increased to 80 million. The Census Bureau estimates Ethiopia’s population today at 91 million. Since 1995, the average annual rate of population growth has remained at over 3 percent.
Every government and regime in Ethiopia over the past one-half century has blamed famine on “acts of God.” For the last two decades, the current regime has blamed “food shortages”, “chronic or severe malnutrition”, “food insecurity”, etc., on “poor and erratic rains,” “drought conditions,” “deforestation and soil erosion,” “overgrazing,” and other “natural factors”. Zenawi’s regime even had the brazen audacity to blame “Western indifference” and “apathy” in not providing timely food aid for the suffering of starving Ethiopians. There is not a single instance in which any Ethiopian government or regime has ever taken even partial responsibility for food shortages, extreme malnutriion or failure to act and prevent starvation and famine.
The issue of “food security” aside, the central question is: Does Zenawi have a policy to deal with the little big 3 percent problem?
In 1993, Zenawi’s “Transitional Government of Ethiopia” in its “National Population Policy of Ethiopia” (NPPE) declared that “its major goal [was] the harmonization of the rate of population growth and the capacity of the country for the development and rational utilization of natural resources thereby creating conditions conductive to the improvement of the level of welfare of the population.”
Among the major objectives of the NPPE included “closing the gap between high population growth and low economic productivity through planned reduction of population growth…, reducing the rate to urban migration, reducing the current total fertility rate of 7.7 children per woman to approximately 4.0 by the year 2015… mounting an effective country wide population information and education programme addressing issues pertaining to small family size and its relationship with human welfare and environmental security.”
Among the strategies to be used in achieving these objectives included “expanding clinical and community based contraceptive distribution services, raising the minimum age at marriage for girls from the current lower age limit of 15 to, at least, 18 years, making population and family life related education and information widely available via formal and informal media”, facilitating delivery of population and family planning related services by non-governmental organizations and changing the law “to remove unnecessary restrictions pertaining to the advertisement, propagation and popularization of diverse conception control methods.”
Given the fact that the average annual rate of population growth in Ethiopia has remained at over 3 percent since 1995,commenting on the NPPE is belaboring the obvious.
Will There Be Ethiopia in 2050?
Whether Ethiopia survives as a viable nation in 2050 free of war, disease, pestilence and famine will not depend on an imaginary 15 percent economic growth or a ludicrous 99.6 percent election victory. It will depend on what is done to deal with the little big 3 percent problem. In other words, overpopulation poses the single most critical problem and decisve issue in Ethiopia today and the years to come.
Thomas Malthus, the 18th Century British economist argued that human population, if unchecked, tends to grow much faster than the capacity of the land to produce food. He explained that population can be controlled through “preventive checks” (such as family planning, wide use of contraceptives to slow growth, marriage at later age) or “positive checks” (mortality caused by war, disease, plague, disaster). The bottom line is that if Ethiopia cannot adequately feed, clothe and shelter 90 million of its people today, there is no way on earth she can do so for 278 million in just 40 years. If the “Malthusian catastrophe” is what is looming on the Ethiopian horizon, the outcome is predictable and certain: massive starvation and famine, extreme overcrowding, endemic poverty, total depletion of natural resources and massive environmental degradation. Widespread and extreme civil strife, conflict over scarce resources and epidemics will complete the grim picture.
What needs to be done is pretty clear. As the Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has convincingly argued, the best way to avert famines (and simultaneously deal with the underlying problem of overpopulation) is by institutionalizing multiparty democracy and strengthening human rights: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy” because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.”
Ethiopia’s famine today is a famine borne of “food scarcity” as much as it is a famine borne of a scarcity of democracy and good governance. Ethiopians are famished for democracy, starved of human rights, thirst for the rule of law, ache for accountability of those in power and yearn to breathe free from the chokehold of dictatorship. But after two decades of one-man, one-party rule, we do not even see the ghost of democracy on Ethiopia’s parched landscape. We can only see a malignant and entrenched dictatorship that continues to cling to power like ticks on a milk cow; and in the dark and gloomy 40-year Ethiopian horizon, we see the specter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse aiming their swords, spears and arrows against a defenseless population of 278 million. Our only shield is a genuine multiparty democracy that functions under the rule of law!
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
… within an established totalitarian regime the purpose of propaganda is not to persuade, much less to inform, but to humiliate. From this point of view, propaganda should not approximate to the truth as closely as possible: on the contrary it should do as much violence to it as possible. For by endlessly asserting what is {www:patently} untrue, by making such untruth {www:ubiquitous} and unavoidable, and finally by insisting that everyone publicly {www:acquiesce} in it, the regime displays its power and reduces individuals to nullities. Who can retain his self-respect when, far from defending what he knows to be true, he has to applaud what he knows to be false – not occasionally, as we all do, but for the whole of his adult life?” – Anthony Daniel
That is the capability the Meles regime is trying to build in Ethiopia. Anthony Daniel observed this and other strange behaviors by human beings during his travels inside totalitarian regimes of East Germany, Albania, North Korea and Cuba. The Ethiopian regime is modeled after them. All the above countries were/are economically backward, single party dominated with a sick {www:megalomaniac} in charge and highly armed. Cultivation of fear was their number one industry. The fear administered by these regimes is studied for its effectiveness and meant to strip the individuals of his/her self-respect. To dehumanize the person into submission was the main goal of the totalitarian state.
In Ethiopia the regime has all the tools of coercion at its disposal. The regime is the number one employer in the country. All our cousins rely on the goodwill of the regime. All land belongs to the State, thus ninety percent of Ethiopians live at the whims of the Federal government, the Kilil, all the way to the Kebele level. One false move and it is the end of the world, as they know it. They are victims of engineered fear.
Part Three of the video with ‘Ethiopian Merchants’ was all what the meeting was about. It is the Crown Jewel display of a regime bullying its own citizens that contribute the most. It was to give a public spanking to the people that have been operating under tremendous pressure to eek out a living. It was a moment to emasculate the Ethiopian merchants. We are talking about a breed of people that survived the socialist, military, and ‘strong man’ rule Ethiopia only to be administered a public flogging by The Leader himself. I am sure there are some that take the short cut. They are a few. The biggest and insurmountable threat was coming from the State subsidized, Privately owned {www:conglomerate}s like EFFORT and its offsprings.
Despite all this our merchants were finding ways of going around obstacles and supporting family and friends. Our merchants are our best ambassadors. They travel to the remotest of Chinese villages to get a bargain. These naturally smart people seasoned in the art of trade on international level by sheer determination and drive were declared unnecessary and irrelevant by Ato Meles. He said the regime would rather involve in meaningful development rather than ‘being a soap peddler’ like the merchants. That was said in contempt, which is very sad. I guess we all can’t be Prime Ministers.
The meeting was to humiliate our merchants. Ato Meles was hitting hard. He meant to completely obliterate the middle class. This meeting was the unfurling of his new scheme. His new attempt to copy Wal-Mart and incorporate that success into nation building scheme. I told you he was {www:unconventional}. To go with our new flag, we will have a new name. Welcome to the Federal Democratic Republic of Wal-Opia where the regime ‘buys in bulk, repackage it, determine the profit margin and allow the worthless peasants to distribute it.
Fasten your seat belt; Ato Meles is the driver this time around. Looks like Colonel Mengistu jettisoned off a while back. If you close your eyes, you are excused, no one likes going off a cliff without a parachute. So sorry about that, there is only one parachute in this bus. Hope you enjoyed your final ride.
In Part Three Ato Meles was using the power of his office, the absolute control of Parliament and security under him to bully the merchants into submission. At the end of Part Two He called them common thieves that present false vouchers never to be trusted (7:37) then went into bully mode right away. In Part Three he started off by mentioning the last meeting with the same merchants and remembered it this way:
We assumed that the road from the existing system to the correct system would be a rocky one when we discussed with you earlier, and we agreed on the ‘price set’ I remember the questions some of you asked. You said if this policy does not work what are you going to do next, the question might have been innocent on the other hand it might have hidden messages like we are going to sabotage the price controls so what we are you going to do next. I would say this type of approach does not encourage frank discussions especially if the PM sees ulterior motive behind every question? He said that to lay the ground rules for this meeting. The story he told next is the map of economic activity under the rule of TPLF new and improved formulae.
He said the economic policy he had in place for the last twenty years assumed that by shielding the trade sector from foreign capital our people would accumulate enough capital and move into industry, farming and manufacturing. It did not happen. (1:01) Thus the blame lies on the merchant class for not involving in those activities. He reminded them of what he said before of the possibility of opening the market to foreign competition or the State being forced to participate in the trade sector. Thus due to the sabotage by the merchants against his ‘price control policy’ and the general lack of competition he announced, “we have decided to pick a few main commodities such as Oil, Sugar and Wheat and restructure the system how they are imported. What that means is one central authority purchases for all of Ethiopia and in bulk and we will have several choices to get cheap price in other words like what the Koreans do. (Please note he did not specify which Korea and what exactly they do?) We can buy it unrefined and refine and repackage it here.” (4:14)
Next is where the theory is seen in its practical form. The plan is as elegant as any devised by a committee of academicians sitting in their high tower and equating ants to human activity. You can see the problem a mile away. Looks like he forgets the pesky ugly trait humans possess that is known as ‘free will’ and it never fails to show up. This is what the Great Leader for life said “Upon buying it in bulk we do not want to assume the distribution end of it. We want plenty of distributors and retailers in every town what we don’t want is vertical integration between retailer and distributor. (5:03). It will be done in all the Kilils. We want your cooperation here. In the future we are not going to worry about the price of beer here and meat over there we want to make a fundamental solution. (9:03). We want to start slow and include all commodities.”
The Ethiopian government just declared a section of its most vibrant and creative citizens irrelevant. This is not the first time. Ato Meles and company have this nasty habit of taking a section of society and making an enemy out of. There was a time when Ato Meles declared University professors unnecessary. The best and experienced were fired. We kept quiet. Independent Trade Unions were deemed superfluous and leaders like Ato Assefa Maru were fatally shot in public. We turned a blind eye. Political Parties not organized by TPLF were seen as the enemy and Ato Meles used state power to murder leaders (Professor Asrat Woldeyes) Imprison elected leaders (Kinijit) jail leader of an opposition Party (Judge Bertukan Mideksa) disrupt (All Ethiopia, OFDM, OPC, Andenet) and we turned our face away. Independent News Paper editors, publishers, reporters and even street venders were systematically eliminated and we betrayed all by our silence.
Is there room for optimism here? Do you think our bosses found the secret formula to grow our economy and usher in a period of peace and harmony? You know the answer. If it has not borne fruit in twenty years it is not going to happen even if you give it additional hundred years. I am not being a naysayer, just realistic. There comes a time where you swallow your pride and admit defeat and get out of the way. That time has arrived. Ato Meles and company were given a clean sheet and given the power and authority to draw any picture they wanted. There was no opposition, no organized force to stop them and no external enemy to threaten them.
When you consider Meles and company never have any experience running a little kiosk let alone a national economy there is no surprise for that uneasy feeling we all have. There is one thing al the TPLF leaders have in common before they assumed power. They never had a bank account, they have never worked for wages, and they have never paid rent, bought a car, shopped for insurance or received utility bills. All their knowledge comes from theory not real life experience. There is no substitute for actual experience.
When Ato Meles speaks of being a distributor of oil and sugar and when he talks about vertical integration and stuff you know it all came from books, not real life situation. The fact of the matter is Wal-Mart is successful because it is driven by purely personal interest. The central motive is making a profit. Wal-Mart faced competition and relied on the creative potential of the founder and his associates to build such a colossal successful enterprise. It is testimonial to the power of the individual to excel when given the chance. Cadres are not capable of understand that fact.
The Ethiopian people are under tremendous pressure. The Meles regime has used the last twenty years to sharpen its weapons of coercion. They might have failed in growing the economy but they have excelled in constructing a prison that passes itself as a country. They might not have enough books for our children, they might not have medicine for our sick, they might not have enough food in storage for our people, they might not have enough teachers, doctors and other professionals to make our peoples life better but they have the best army fully equipped, they have the best security force that is embedded in every house hold and even have the latest and fastest computers to spy on, collect information and intimidate the population.
That is in Ethiopia. How about outside? What is the situation with those that escaped from this national jail? Have they managed to conquer the fear? What do you think? I am asking you my reader, yes, you! Are you afraid of Ato Meles? Shouldn’t distance from the source of fear relieve us of some of that anxiety? I see, you claim you are not afraid. Good, I will take your word for it. But I got a question for you. Now tell me when Ato Meles and company are abusing your cousins, squandering your wealth, exposing your parents to famine and starvation, exiling the young and able how did you respond? Did you say hold on a minute this does not sound right?
Some did. A vast majority of us choose the road of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Why? Because Fear cannot be wished away. Fear has become part of our persona. Fear of authority, fear of elders and the tendency to conform is a sickness we are unable to overcome. Most of us are aware that the current regime under the TPLF is not the way out. We all talk of the incoming apocalypse. We are always predicting civil war, internal strife, bloodshed around the corner and implosion from inside. What is so curious is that most of us are not willing to do what is necessary to avoid this horrible scenario unfolding in front of us. May be it will be a good idea if we take the time to self analyze and find the reason for this self-destructive behavior.
It is not true that the individual is helpless to do anything about it. That is a cover we give our self to avoid responsibility. As it is said not a single raindrop will admit to be the cause of the flood. The same with us, we might think our individual action is insignificant in the scheme of things but how wrong we are. It is our individual action that empowers the tyrant, plus you can only answer for your actions not for mine, so what do you say fellow country person? Are you contributing to your liberation or slavery?
The last few days we are really happy that Secretary of State Clinton told the AU and Ato Meles about the importance of Democracy. I am very happy. But why do I get this feeling that her words do not match her deeds? Isn’t Ato Meles coddled and propped up by our foreign friends? Who trains and equips his army, who grants him loans from World Bank and IMF, who lets him sit with elected leaders in International settings, who bestows legitimacy on him? So tell me what is all this excitement about?
I understand now. It is that old habit of wishing others to do the dirty job for us. It is that dysfunctional tendency we have acquired to outsource the liberation struggle. It is not going to work. It has been tried for the last twenty years with nothing to show for it. Looks like the burden is on us again. May be it is about time we do some growing up and face responsibility? May be it is about time we cut out this pretension and stand up to be counted. No one can force you to do the right thing. No one can make you see the light. No one can help you regain your self-esteem. It is one thing to play dead, what I don’t understand is this tendency we have to feverishly oppose even those that are trying to stand up for our rights.
There is the economics of Adam Smith, the intellectual father of capitalism. There is Levitt & Dubner’s freakonomics of weird stuff. Then there is the fakeonomics (economics by gimmickry) of Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia and author of the five-year “Growth and Transformation Plan” (GTP). Zenawi forecasts a “not unimaginable” 14.9 percent economic growth for Ethiopia over the next five years after devaluing the currency by 20 percent, slapping price controls on many food items and watching from the sidelines annual inflation galloping at 34.7 percent. He has accused the country’s business community of price gauging and hoarding and threatened to shut them down, jail them and literally cut the hands of any business person caught in the illicit trade of coffee.
The GTP is a make-a-wish list of stuff. It purports to be based on a “long-term vision” of making Ethiopia “a country where democratic rule, good-governance and social justice reigns.” It aims to “build an economy which has a modern and productive agricultural sector with enhanced technology and an industrial sector” and “increase per capita income of citizens so that it reaches at the level of those in middle-income countries.” It boasts of “pillar strategies” to “sustain faster and equitable economic growth”, “maintain agriculture as a major source of economic growth,” “create favorable conditions for the industry to play key role in the economy,” “expand infrastructure and social development,” “build capacity and deepen good governance” and “promote women and youth empowerment and equitable benefit.”
The ‘economic plan’ (“GTP”) itself floats on a sea of catchphrases, clichés, slogans, buzzwords, platitudes, truisms and bombast. Zenawi says his plan will produce “food sufficiency in five years.” But he cautions it is a “high-case scenario which is clearly very, very ambitious.” He says the ‘base-case’ scenario of ‘11 percent average economic growth over the next five years is doable” and the ‘high-case’ scenario of 14.9 percent is ‘not unimaginable’. The hype of super economic growth rate is manifestly detached from reality. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Multidimensional Poverty Index 2010 (formerly annual U.N.D.P. Human Poverty Index) ranks Ethiopia as second poorest (ahead of famine-ravaged Mali) country on the planet. Six million Ethiopians needed emergency food aid last year and many millions will need food aid this year. An annual growth rate of 15 percent for the second poorest country on the planet for the next five years goes beyond the realm of imagination to pure fantasy. The IMF predicts a growth rate of 7 percent for 2011, but talking about economic statistics on Ethiopia is like talking about the art of voodoo.
Strong growth has continued in 2010/11 that the mission estimates at 7.5 percent (compared to an official estimate of 11.4 percent)…. The mission sees lower growth for 2011/12, at about 6 percent, on account of high inflation, restrictions on private bank lending, and a more difficult business environment… The growth and investment objectives of the new five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) are ambitious. The mission urged the authorities to the pace implementation of the plan to avoid any further overheating of the economy. Success will also hinge on allowing room for the private sector to thrive and maintaining a low risk of debt distress…
Ethiopia’s dependence on foreign capital to finance budget deficits and a five-year investment plan is unsustainable… I can’t see it’s sustainable short of discovering huge oil reserves, essentially an unexpected windfall… I don’t see how they can sustain such an aggressive investment plan without getting into serious problems… If you’re not as a nation saving enough, you are dependent on foreign capital or other means of financing investment in an unhealthy, unsustainable way… That’s the sort of trap they seem to be falling into… On debt there is a danger… If this public investment-led growth at some point really stumbles or stagnates for a while then all these debt equations could unravel. … I do worry that without the private sector expanding much more vigorously then rapid growth is not likely to be sustainable and if that’s the case then all these debt balances could go out of control.
On June 6, Zenawi’s finance chief said the WB and IMF are all wrong. He insisted the GTP will “double economic growth by registering 14.9 percent growth on average”. He proclaimed that in the next five years there will be “fast and sustainable economic growth,” and “food security at household and national level.” There will be “more than 2000 km of railway networks would be constructed” and power generation will be in the range of “ 8,000 to 10,000 MW from water and wind resources during the next five years.”
On June 9, Zenawi’s deputy, Hailemariam Desalegn, offered assurances that “economic expansion won’t drop below 9 percent in the fiscal year to July 7, 2012, from 11.4 percent this year.” He boasted that “the whole community has mobilized to buy bonds. This huge savings and mobilization is used for infrastructure development… We are getting loans from China, India, Turkey and South Korea, so all these foreign savings are also mobilized… So I think we can perform on the ambitious plans that are in place.”
Cutting Through the Diplomatic Bull
For the last several months, Zenawi has been staging one farcical political theatre after another to distract attention from his brutal repression and to pretend that he is the one immovable object in the Sub-Saharan universe come the gusting southerly winds of change from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya or high water. He has been engaged in belligerent talk of regime change in Eritrea, inflammatory water war-talk with Egypt, wild allegations of terrorist attacks, proclamations for the construction of an imaginary dam over the Blue Nile, vicious attacks on international human rights organizations and wholesale jailing and intimidation of opponents.
Now Zenawi is shifting from political to economic theatre. As the country convulses in spiraling inflation Zenawi says, “It’s all good. Not a problem.” But the verdict of the big time bankers is in: Zenawi’s GTP is pure fantasy, a figment of his imagination. Of course, bankers like diplomats avoid straight talk and prefer to tip-toe and tap-dance around the truth. When they can say the GTP has as much chance of success as a snowball in hell, they would say the plan is “ambitious,” “unhealthy” and “unsustainable.” Instead of saying the plan is manifestly doomed to failure, they hedge on absurd contingencies that the plan will work only if “huge oil reserves are discovered” or the country gets an “unexpected windfall”. When they can say the Ethiopian economy has collapsed, they hem and haw about their concerns that the plan could “further overheat the economy”. They twiddle their thumbs and “worry about the private sector not thriving,” and express concern over Ethiopia’s “dependence on foreign capital”, the “unraveling of debt equations” and “debt balances getting out of control.”
Fakeonomics 101
As I have demonstrated in a previous commentary, Zenawi’s economic planning is based on juggled figures, massaged statistics and irrational exuberance about overrated and illusory economic development. Systematic falsification of economic data, fraudulent statistics and creative accounting in economic reports have largely gone unchallenged for years by the learned economists. The lack of systematic and sustained critique by Diaspora economists is all the more surprising and baffling given the fact that the economic swagger and wind-bagging about stratospheric economic growth and development comes from a regime not known for its economic “literacy”. The Economist Magazine in its November 7, 2006 editorial, in the context of the Starbucks coffee row, bluntly stated: “The Ethiopian government, one of the most economically illiterate in the modern world, would do well to take Starbucks’s advice.” The same observation was repeated in 2009 at a high level meeting of Western donor policy makers in Berlin where, according to a Wikileaks cablegram, a German diplomat suggested that Ethiopia’s economic woes could be traced to “Meles’ poor understanding of economics”. Today, to the surprise of many observers, the IMF and WB who have previously swallowed whole the regime’s preposterous economic claims are openly echoing the views of the German diplomat and the Economist Magazine.
Deceit, chicanery, paralogy and sophistry are the hallmarks of Zenawi’s regime. For many years, that regime has managed to scam the multilateral bankers and donors by talking about “sustainability,” “double-digit growth”, “renaissance” and “accelerated development in the developmental state”. It has even sought to shame and intimidate Western banker and donors by moral hectoring of the evils of “neoliberalism”. Zenawi seems to follow the old principle that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” In the Information Age, if you tell one big lie and embellish it with little lies every day, you will end up fooling yourself and no one else. (That obviously does not apply to Ethiopia which is hopelessly stranded and trapped in the Censorship and Disinformation Age).
The economic facts about Ethiopia are plain for all to see: The economy is in the stranglehold of organized racketeers and regime cronies. Regime-affiliated businesses and enterprises control “freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms on loans from government banks.” According to the regime’s data, by the end of the 2009 fiscal year, Ethiopia’s outstanding debt stock was pegged at a crushing USD$5.2 billion. Remittances by Diaspora Ethiopians were the mainstay of the economy, and in 2008 Ethiopians in the U.S. alone sent $1.2 billion. “Ethiopia is Africa’s largest recipient of foreign aid (at $3.3 billion in 2008 and rising).” The regime has auctioned off millions of hectares of the country’s best land for less than pennies. “For £150 a week (USD$245), you can lease more than 2,500 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of virgin, fertile land – an area the size of Dorset, England – for 50 years, plus generous tax breaks.”
According to the regime’s data, Ethiopia’s year-on-year rate of inflation jumped to 34.7 percent in May (2011) from 29.5 percent a month earlier; and food prices rose 40.7 percent during the year. Every year, Zenawi’s regime runs up the SOS flag begging for emergency humanitarian aid . So far in 2011, humanitarian pledges, commitments and contributions to the regime exceed USD$212 million. To get a government job or higher education, one has to be a member of Zenawi’s party. Ethiopia’s current population of some 80 million is expected to double in the next thirty years. It is mind-numbing to imagine the number of people who will be living in abject poverty without access to health care, education and employment in Ethiopia in three decades. The regime has failed to implement any policy aimed at controlling population growth.
One has to assume that those in the inner circle of the regime are aware of the massive economic crises in the country despite their manifest lack of “economic literacy.” But that assumption may be questionable given the fact that the regime appears to be in denial and has used its modest economic ingenuity to pin the blame for Ethiopia’s galloping inflation and the rest of that country’s economic problems on global market forces. Zenawi now offers the GTP as a “pie in the sky” plan that will not only provide food security but also catapult Ethiopia into becoming a middle income country like Malaysia in five years. The fact of the matter is that the regime’s self-centered short-term interests in accumulating wealth for its members and determination to cling to power forever have trumped the long-term strategic interests of the country.
Zenawi now is not only having difficulty persuading its bankers that it has the right economic policy, but the bankers are looking at his plan with increasing derision and cynicism. Ohashi says the GTP will work if Ethiopia “discovers huge oil reserves” or gets “an unexpected windfall.” Ohashi might as well have said the plan will work if manna falls from the sky.
Zenawi’s fakeonomics is nothing new. The old communist regimes in Eastern Europe used to pull the same types of political and economic stunts. They would hold “elections” and declare they won it by 99 percent (to their credit not by 99.6 percent). They also had their “five-year economic plans” in which they predicted and “achieved” incredible economic growth. For instance, they would set a production target of ten thousand tractors a year and actually produce five thousand. They would publicly report they produced fifteen thousand tractors and give the factory bosses increased wages and bonuses for exceeding the production target. The communist regimes would even say they did not have inflation just high prices and deny high quality food items and other amenities to the masses while the nomenclatura (party bosses) and their cronies wallowed in luxury. The reality in Ethiopia is that basic necessities are unavailable and unaffordable to the vast majority of the people, and even those who could afford the inflated prices must have the right connection to get an adequate supply. A regime incapable of providing sugar, cooking oil and other basic staples to the people now boasts of making Ethiopia a middle income country in five years.
Are Ethiopians better off economically today than they were five years ago? The answer to that question will be the answer to what they will be five years from now!
In the final analysis, it is not about the plan. It’s about the man. As George Ayittey said, “Africa is poor because she is not free.” I say Africa is poor because of dictators who cling to power like ticks on a milk cow.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
