EDITOR’S NOTE: The beggar regime in Ethiopia led by Meles Zenawi pays the Washington DC-based DLP Piper lobby and law firm $50,000 per month. On top of that, officials of the regime and their partners take hundreds of millions of dollars (hard currency) out of the country to buy homes and other properties in the U.S. and other developed countries. I urge the author of the following report, Carol Leoning of Washington Post, and other media to investigate the flight of capital out of countries like Ethiopia. They can start with Samuel Tafesse, a business partner of Meles Zenawi and wife. — Elias Kifle
By Carol D. Leonnig | Washington Post
Over the past five years, the authoritarian regime of the Congo Republic has leaned on Washington lobbyists to help with an image problem.
Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the president of the country – one of the world’s poorest – had been accused in court and in lawsuits of diverting tens of millions of dollars in national oil profits to hidden bank accounts and then using the money to buy mansions in France and to finance spending sprees in Paris, Dubai and New York. His main antagonist was a New York investment firm that had accused him of misspending money in a lawsuit seeking repayment of an old debt.
Sassou-Nguesso reached out for help on Capitol Hill. In 2006, the Congo Republic began a Washington lobbying campaign that has now cost about $9 million and involved more than 100 conversations and meetings with members of Congress, their staffs and African advocacy groups, according to lobbying disclosure reports.
A main focus of the effort was to persuade Congress to stop the profitable business of investment funds like the one that had embarrassed Sassou-Nguesso.
Experts on the Congo Republic and African debt say the lobbying effort financed by the small nation in central Africa has been unusual in its cost and intensity. Impoverished countries struggling to provide food, water and medical care to residents rarely pay out millions to retain the services of high-powered D.C. lobbyists.
The Congo Republic made clear that its legislative priorities included “responding to allegations of misconduct directed at President Sassou-Nguesso by creditors of the Republic of Congo,” according to reports filed in Washington.
The Congo Republic’s lobbyists took the lead among African nations in pushing for Congress to enact “vulture fund” legislation that would prevent foreign investors from reaping windfall profits by buying up at basement prices the debts of poor countries and then suing the countries to repay in full. The Congo Republic, which settled most of its outstanding debts to investment firms in a confidential 2008 agreement, said it was seeking protection for all poor African nations, such as Rwanda, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.
In the House, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) stepped forward to sponsor a bill that won support from 33 co-sponsors, including many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. She introduced it in 2008 and reintroduced it in 2009.
Waters told the British news media a year ago that she was unaware that the Sassou-Nguesso government had been involved in pushing the legislation. Last week, she acknowledged that lobbyists for the Congo Republic submitted proposed language for the legislation to her office in 2007 and met with her and her staff to shape the final bill. Records show that the Congo Republic’s lobbying team has met or spoken with Waters’s office 40 times since 2006, including two meetings with the lawmaker.
Waters said the legislation is part of her long-standing effort to help impoverished African nations. She said the Congo Republic’s lobbying against these investors, paid for by state oil revenue, may well be in the interest of the Congolese people.
“Poor countries have the same right to hire lobbyists and lawyers as more affluent countries,” she said.
To groups that support the legislation, such as TransAfrica Forum and Jubilee USA, Waters and her colleagues are taking on a powerful segment of the financial industry and preserving scarce African resources for their people. Every year, African nations p ay about $14 billion in debt costs to wealthy nations and international institutions while receiving less than $13 billion in international aid, advocacy groups estimate.
But John Clark, a professor at Florida International University and an expert on the Congo Republic, said members of Congress should be wary of lobbyists for Sassou-Nguesso.
“The purpose of the lobbying is to cover up this nasty reality of authoritarian politics and to protect the leadership’s personal finances,” Clark said.
The trail of Congo Republic money was exposed by Elliott Management, a New York hedge fund that sued the country for repayment of an estimated $100 million in debt. The firm declined to discuss the dispute.
In 2005, it alleged in court that it found that the Sassou-Nguesso regime had diverted money into shell companies secretly owned by a top presidential deputy. (A British court agreed that the country had oil assets in hidden accounts.) Serge Mombouli, the Congo Republic’s ambassador to the United States, said embezzlement charges are unproved.
Other groups then alleged that Sassou-Nguesso used oil profits for his personal benefit. A lawsuit brought by French humanitarian organizations claimed that three African leaders, including Sassou-Nguesso, misused state money for personal luxuries. A preliminary French police investigation in 2007 found Sassou-Nguesso family holdings that included five mansions in or near Paris and a car worth $224,492.
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In France last year, Sassou-Nguesso said the assets were typical for a world leader.
“All the leaders of the world have castles and palaces in France, whether they are from the gulf, Europe or Africa,” he said.
In 2006, the Congo Republic retained the D.C. law firm Trout Cacheris to handle several assignments, including working with the International Monetary Fund to win impoverished-nation status and dealing with charges made against Sassou-Nguesso. For help, Trout Cacheris hired the Livingston Group, run by former congressman Bob Livingston (R-La.); Chlopak Leonard Schechter and Associates; the former Amani Group, led by former congressman William H. Gray III (D-Pa.); and the communications firm Public Private Solutions.
John Richards, the main Congo Republic lobbyist, said Sassou-Nguesso properly sought to stop “a global smear campaign against the Congolese government.”
Lobbyists for the Congo Republic worked closely with Waters as well as a coalition of U.S.-based religious, human rights and environmental groups.
Melinda St. Louis, a deputy director of Jubilee USA, a coalition of religious and human rights groups, said the organization relied on Richards for expertise. But she said her group has tried to “keep an arm’s-length relationship” with the Congo Republic government.
In an interview last year, Waters said poor nations need protection from vulture funds. At that time, she said that she would not seek legislation to shield dictators who are “known to be stealing” from their people and that she was not aware that the Congo Republic’s lobbying team was involved in the push for legislation.
Waters, who is facing an ethics charge on a separate matter before the House ethics committee, now says her comments did not accurately describe her staff’s dealings wit h the lobbying team.
In a statement last week, she confirmed that lobbyists had submitted proposed legislation and were consulted in vetting her measure.
Etete Ethiopian Restaurant in Washington DC is hired to feed 500 Woyannes and hodams this coming Saturday at a lavish party thrown by the second richest man in Ethiopia and a business partner of Ethiopia’s brutal dictator Meles Zenawi (click here to read details).
If Etete owners need our business, they need to be sensitive to our pain, the pain of Ethiopians who have been forced into exile by Woyanne looters and murderers who continue to brutalize our people back home.
Let’s call Etete owners at 202 232 7600 and politely ask them to cancel their contract to provide food at the party.
Ethiopian Review has established a hotline for those who have information about every one who will attend the party. Please send us names, addresses, and photos of those who will be dining and wining with the looters:
Etete Restaurant Tel: 202 232 7600
Ethiopian Review Hotline Tel: 202 656 5117
Email: [email protected]
Sources of information will be kept strictly confidential.
There are three classes of the rich in Ethiopia: 1. the Woyannes (the super rich), 2. their hodam supporters (bottom-feeders), and 3. honest wealthy Ethiopians whose number is diminishing by the day.
(Note to non-Ethiopian readers: Hodam is one who has no conscience, who sells his country, his people, his soul… for material gain. Woyanne is the ruling junta in Ethiopia.)
Among the hodam class, the second richest person in Ethiopia, next to Al Amoudi, is said to be Samuel Tafesse, a business partner of Meles and Azeb, the Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu of Ethiopia.
Samuel has been known to flash his conspicuously massive wealth by building a palace for himself in the middle of Addis Ababa, and throwing lavish parties.
This week, Samuel Tafesse and friends, including top Woyanne officials, are arriving in Washington DC to attend an extravagant party to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary. The party will be held next Saturday night, August 28, at the Mandarin Oriental, one of Washington DC’s most expensive hotels.
The who’s who of Woyannes and their hodam supporters, about 500 of them, have been invited to dine, wine, and dance.
The cost for throwing the party is estimated to exceed $200,000.
Etete Restaurant in Washington DC has been hired to cater the Ethiopian food (Tel: 202 232 7600).
Woyannes and the hodam class in Washington DC are busy this week buying party dresses and going to beauty spa in preparation for the party.
The wedding anniversary celebration will be followed by a house warming party for Samuel Tafesse’s mansion that is being built in Alexandria, Virginia, at the cost of $5 million. Construction crews are currently hurrying up to complete the house (shown below), which is sitting on 2 acres of land, located 20 minutes drive from Washington DC..
Fairfax County public records show that the 2-acre land (see below), located at 6434 Casperson Road, Alexandria VA, was sold to Samuel for $750,000 in December 2008.
When presented with the plan to build such a huge house, city officials were unhappy because the land could be used to build at least 10 townhouses. They urged him to build his mansion in another location further in the suburbs, which he refused.
(The above satellite photo was taken before Samuel’s mansion was built. City planners wanted to use the land to build townhouses similar to those in the area.)
The small house in the middle of the land (shown above) has now been torn down to build Samuel’s 16,000 square feet gigantic mansion.
One amused neighbor who saw the construction wrote: “It is being built as strong as a bunker. The basement looks like you could practice firing machine guns without disturbing neighbors. The 4 car garage is larger than my townhouse.”
Building big homes and buying luxury items is not a crime. In fact, they need to be encouraged since they help create employment for many people. But when such wealth is accumulated illegally, by crushing other businesses through unfair competition, by bribing government officials and partnering with heads of governments, it is harmful to a nation in so many ways.
As a close friend and business partner of Ethiopia’s brutal dictator Meles Zenawi and wife Azeb Mesfin, Samuel’s company, Sunshine Construction, is the first in line to receive the most lucrative contracts for construction projects around the country. Conveniently, Samuel’s wife is the sister of Public Works Minister Kassu Illala, who supervises all major construction projects in the country.
Samuel’s partners, Meles and Azeb, whose wealth is estimated to be $1.2 billion, get a cut from all the profit he makes. Since profit is the only motive — and in the absence of genuine inspection — most of the buildings and roads Sunshine and the other corrupt companies build do not meet quality standards. Some of them are already falling apart. In short, Samuel’s wealth is accumulated through pernicious corruption — the kind of corruption that suck the life blood of a nation.
There are so many hard working, honest Ethiopians who could be as rich. But they are kept down, pushed out and many are leaving the country because they are NOT friends or partners of powerful government officials. It is such corruption and greed on the part Woyannes and their hodam supporters that have created an environment where most Ethiopians are unable to work and earn decent income in a country as rich in natural resources as Ethiopia. Instead of living under such a system, many are fleeing the country, in the process being subjected to the kind of humiliation and indignity as shown below where poor, innocent fellow Ethiopians are forced by Kenyan police to lay on the ground, face down.
The difference between these desperate Ethiopians and the likes of Samuel Tafesse is that the poor and destitute Ethiopians are not friends and partners of the ruling class. They are not any less hard worker or less smart than the hodam class who are flashing their ill-gotten wealth in our face.
Woyannes and their hodam supporters are committing egregious offenses, with impunity, against Ethiopians because the Ethiopian elite, including scholars, religious leaders, artists, the media, those leading opposition parties, have all failed to provide leadership. It’s easy to blame every thing on Woyanne, but the truth of the matter is that Ethiopians in every field who have the responsibility to provide leadership have miserably failed, as Teshome Mitiku points out in this song below:
Leader-less people by Teshome Mitiku
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/music/TeshomeMitiku/TeshomeMitiku-Leader-less-people.mp3[/podcast]
Kenyan troops force innocent Ethiopian refugees to lay on the ground, face down, before transporting them to jail. The only crime the Ethiopians have committed was trying to escape from Meles Zenawi’s brutal dictatorship. Ethiopia under Emperor HaileSelassie had supported Kenyans to liberate their country from colonialists by providing them with food, shelter, and weapons. No Kenyan refugee had ever been mistreated or deported by Ethiopia. As we see in the photo above, the ingrate Kenyans are returning the favor by humiliating the Ethiopians who have now fallen victim of a vampire regime that is backed by neocolonialists. This week Kenya has celebrated “Founding Father Day.” Marking the occasion, Ato Taddele G. Hiwot has penned the following poem:
The Ethiopians in prison
No Emperor to intervene
No Kenyata to listen
The Noble Ethiopian
The blameless Ethiopian
Is in prison
No smiles on their face
Counting the minutes by Meles;
In prison without charge
The eighty nine noble beings.
Lucky Kenya celebrates
23rd Anniversary of its founding Father
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta
And the noble Ethiopians are there
On 22nd of August 2010
To celebrate in prayer
The Kenyans at the Mausoleum
And Ethiopian in prison.
Lucky Kenya celebrate
August 1978 Kenyatta’s Day
Ethiopians had a father
Founder of educated Ethiopia
August 1975 Haile Selassie’s Day
Kenyatta was born in 1894
Only two years earlier 1892
The Ethiopian king was born
Both are founding fathers of Africa.
Kenyatta rises from death
Selassie still in Meles prison.
Kenyan government runs on olive oil
Ethiopian government stuck by racial clogs
Kenyans have one thing to do
Celebrate Founding Father’s Day
Kenyatta was born on August 1978
Selassie died on August 1975
And both leaders were founders
Founding fathers of Africa.
Kenyans celebrate in the palaces
Ethiopians celebrate in Meles prison.
The blameless Ethiopians in prison
Singing with Kenyans uhuru
Counting the time by praying:
Let life begin withering of racism.
God bless African unity.
Taddele Hiwot
