The Scramble for Ethiopia (Messay Kebede, PhD)

By Messay Kebede (PhD)
What else could better express the existence in today’s Ethiopia of more than eighty political parties, out of which ethnic parties represent the overwhelming majority, than the term “scramble?” That for now the TPLF holds together the disjoined parts of the country by force for its own sectarian interests only reconfirms the accuracy of the term. How did this come about?

When we try to understand what happened to Ethiopia and, by extension, to Eritrea, since the overthrow of the imperial regime, we are invariably overtaken by a mounting perplexity. Unlike the imperial regime, which never declared its intention to empower the people, the political movements that opposed the regime emphatically and without exception asserted their primary and unique goal to be the liberation and empowerment of the people. The EPRP, MEISON, the Derg, the OLF, the TPLF, and the EPLF, to name the most important ones, all claimed to fight for the cause of the people. Yet, none of the movements that succeeded to seize power and implement their programs came anywhere near to fulfilling the promise of liberation and empowerment. On the contrary, all ended in similar types of abject dictatorial and sectarian rules.

The dominant explanation attributes the failures to accidental derailments. It argues that the initial intention and corresponding organizations were fully committed to the goal of liberation until they were derailed by the rise to the leadership position of unfit or fraudulent individuals, who used their position to institute a dictatorial rule and surround themselves by cynical and self-serving groups. Mengistu Haile Mariam, Meles Zenawi, and Issias Afeworki negatively altered, so it is said, the original good intention of the movements that brought them to power.

The trouble with the explanation is that the notion of derailment presupposes what needs to be explained. How could individuals, however smart, determined, and cunning they may be, succeed in overturning movements that were often able to overcome very challenging situations. Even if it was short-lived, the triumph of the Derg over so many opponents remains an exploit. Equally remarkable is the defeat that the EPLF and the TPLF inflicted on the military machine of the Derg. It just begs the question to assert that one or several individuals were able to misdirect movements with such proven strength.
Hence the need for a change of paradigm: instead of taking for granted an initial good intention, what if the devil was already in the intention? Rather than derailment, such an explanation sees continuity between departure and arrival, despite contrary appearances. What happened and is happening are already contained in the initial intention, which therefore was itself vicious. In other words, though the movements promised liberation and empowerment, the real and hidden goal was self-promotion and exclusive control of power. Ideologies advocating the liberation of the masses by revolutionary elites, such as Leninism, Maoism, and ethnonationalism, came in handy and quickly spread like a bushfire.

It must not be made to seem that the adoption of these ideologies by the revolutionary elites was a deliberate deception. The tragedy is that they honestly believed in these ideologies and honestly thought that they were working for the empowerment of the people. The fault was and still is in their mind, in the mistaken understanding of what liberation and empowerment mean. The misunderstanding can be traced to their colonial attitude toward their own people, itself being a resultant of the colonial education they received and thank to which they earned their elite status. The education convinced them that they are the native heirs to the civilizing mission of the colonizer, that the measure of their own modernity is the extent to which they see themselves as tutors and agents of change.

At first look, being agent of change is rather positive and expected from educated people. The problem, however, was that it was conceived in the colonial fashion: it was perceived as an imposition from above and deliberately excluded the active participation of the people. Modernity was not what people bring about through their active engagement and creativity; it was a dictate flowing from the enlightened ones and as such demanding passive compliance. The relationship that exists between elites and the masses is not one of answerability, but of elites fashioning their people according to an idea of modernity that defines them as domesticators, thereby entitling them to absolute power. Whether you call the goal socialism, revolutionary democracy, national liberation movement, it always amounts to a dictatorial rule lining up a whole people in the name of a self-serving idea of modernity.

Ethiopians who are familiar with my books on Ethiopia know that I have developed this flawed idea of modernity and its toxic implications from various angels. The happy surprise for me was that the idea has now crossed into Eritrea’s intellectual space, as witnessed by Yosief Ghebrehiwet’s article titled “Eritrea’s Drive for Modernity: In Search of Asmara” posted on Asmarino. Not only is the article witty and very perceptive, but it also proposes a paradigm change in our understanding of what happened both in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Thus, in analyzing the Eritrean case, Yosief barely refers to the usual motive for the uprising, namely, the national oppression by the Amhara. Instead he focusses on the impact of Italian colonization, which created “a generation that imitated the Italians in every gesture without having any understanding of the beauty of the Italian culture . . . a generation that contemptuously gave its back to the Habesha culture.” The imitation induced an abstract idea of modernity, that is, a conception of modernity “devoid of human factor” and hence intrinsically totalitarian. The modernity of the uprooted is paradoxical: though it speaks of national liberation and empowerment, it is nothing but a replica of colonization by foreign natives. Yosief courageously writes: “the structure of Shaebia’s army that marched to Asmara looked like a colonial army, with the urban elite replacing the Italian positions at the top and the peasants accorded their old place of askaris at the bottom – this was how they came to colonize Asmara.”

The reason for Eritrean uprising is thus obvious: it was a renewed scramble for Ethiopia, a reconstitution of the Italian invasion by natives. This applies to the secessionist movements in Ogadan and Oromia as well, since they aspire to dismantle the conquest by which Menilik defeated the colonial design on Ethiopia. In construing the return to a pre-Menilik political situation as decolonization of Oromia, Ogaden, etc., these movements draw, as elsewhere in Africa, the entitlement to rule from being enlightened natives pushing out alien colonizers. In other words, the ideology of Amhara colonization is how elites invent an ascriptive legitimacy to rule based on ethnic belonging. Without the ideology, the elites would have to justify their entitlement to rule by the implementation of socioeconomic progress, that is, by actual achievement and merit rather than by natural relatedness.
Needless to say, the creation of an ascriptive right to rule through the denunciation of Amhara colonization is little prone to democratic competition and accountability. Accordingly, the so-called national liberation movements are not so much liberation as elite conflicts for the control of territories resulting from the dismantling of Ethiopia. Speaking of the Eritrean war of liberation, Yoseif rightly says, “it was a war fought between Addis Ababa and Asmara elite. In between, the peasants of both Ethiopia and Eritrea perished fighting the respective urban elite’s causes.”

Elite conflicts accurately sum up the Ethiopian revolution and the ethnonationalist assaults on Ethiopia subsequent to that revolution. The reason for the radicalization of the Ethiopian educated elite through the adoption of Leninism in the 60s and 70s was the need to dislodge the old aristocracy with its bureaucracy and military apparatus from power and the control of resources. Class struggle furnished the ideology necessary to mobilize the working people against the old state apparatus and the church, not so much to liberate them as to empower elites defining themselves as “revolutionaries.” In the meantime, ethnonationalist elites were preparing the ground for another round of elite conflicts, this time by creating a form of exclusion based on ethnic belonging, which resulted in the defeat of the Ethiopian Revolution by ethnonationalist forces.
What should be underlined is that the class struggle and the ethnonationalist forms of exclusion find their common source in the colonial understanding of modernity, that is, of modernity as an imposition from above and whose main purpose is to benefit the few. Not only this form of modernization does not tolerate grass-root movements (autonomous civil societies, professional organizations, and unions), independent political parties, and a liberal economic system, but the narrowness of its goal stemming from the colonial model of modernization reserves economic benefits for the few. Such a restricted development further divides elite and unleashes a violent struggle for the control of scarce resources.

As a result, the country moves in a vicious circle: the empowerment of the few at the expense of the majority curtails economic development, which curtailment exasperates elite conflicts for the control of scarce resources. No more than overseas colonizers, internal or native colonizers can allow the enlargement of social wealth and distribution under pain of losing the absolute control of power that their faulty idea of modernity justifies. The opposite, that is, grass-roots modernization is anathema to them because it pushes for the democratization of all forms of social life and for the accountability to the people. By definition, colonizers, those who “civilize,” be they external or internal, cannot but target absolute power.    http://www.awrambatimes.com/?p=7106

Egypt: Irrigation Minister Receives Report On Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Bahaa El-Din received on Monday the Egyptian tripartite committee's report on evaluating the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The report underlined that the committee needs another three months to complete its work, considering Ethiopian new studies and submitting recommendations by which help the governments take right decisions to maintain cooperation among Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.http://allafrica.com/stories/201304021029.html

Oromo Democratic Front’s first meeting draws large crowd

Created on Monday, 01 April 2013 06:27e

(OPride) — Following a controversial declaration on March 28, 2013, the newly formed Oromo Democratic Front held its first public gathering in Saint Paul, Minnesota yesterday.

With a record attendance of more than 500 people, the meeting, intended to introduce the new organization to Oromos in Minnesota, was “the largest Oromo political gathering in years”, eyewitnesses told OPride. Minnesota, also known as ‘Little Oromia’, has the largest number of Oromo immigrants outside of Africa.

The formation of Oromo Democratic Front (ODF) led by former OLF leaders has created an avalanche of reactions from the public. Oromo email listservs, chat rooms, websites, and social media have been abuzz over the weekend with responses ranging from outright dismissal to congratulatory. Some critics object fiercely to the age of ODF leaders, including its President Lencho Lata, while others protest the leader’s decision to advocate for a democratic alternative in Ethiopia, as opposed to liberating Oromia.

Supporters on the other hand praised ODF leaders for making a bold pronouncement to return the diaspora-based Oromo struggle home. Putting to rest a question that has been a constant preoccupation for the Oromo diaspora, ODF leaders ascertained their goal of waging a political struggle inside the country. “We have no desire to become another diaspora organization,” said Dima Noggo, Vice President of ODF. “We intend to build an Ethiopia-wide democratic alternative to EPRDF by engaging and developing a common platform with the representatives of all stakeholders,” Lata added in response to a question by Obang Metho, the Executive Director of Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.

According to reports by Hegeree Media, many of the audience at the gathering in Minnesota lodged critical questions such as: Why launch ODF now? Great idea but how are you going to put your program into practice? Why should we trust you this time? Why the OLF flag? Can an empire be democratized? When did you begin to entertain this idea? Why did you not try to fix OLF? 

The audience said to be one of the most diverse, both in terms of age and gender (more the former than the latter), were satisfied by the answers given to their questions, many falling off the long queue persuaded by answers given to others. However, the report said, there were also a sizable number who came to attack the personality of the leaders.

Asked about ODF’s vision on working with other Oromo political organizations, Lata said, “we want to build cordial relations with all Oromo organizations.” “We want you all to join us but if you disagree with our vision, do not stay on the sidelines. Join one of the many Oromo organizations.”

follow the link: short clip of the opening speech delivered by Lencho Lata  http://www.opride.com/oromsis/news/horn-of-africa/3651-oromo-democratic-front-s-first-meeting-draws-large-crowd

Why is Egypt supplying heavy weapons to somalia

By: Mo Ali
Somalilandsun - The main reason could because be Egypt wants to use Somalia as a proxy against Ethiopia for the sake of Nile waters . Egypt had used Somalia as a proxy against Ethiopia for decades. Egypt supplied Somalia with heavy weapons in the 1964 and 1977 wars against Ethiopia.
Now that the Ethiopians have established peaceful and friendly relations with Somalia and Somaliland , Egypt intends to stir conflict again in the region so that the Ethiopians will not have the peace of mind to utilise the abundant Blue Nile Waters that originate from the Ethiopian highlands .
The questions is, will the Somalis again fall into the Egyptian trap and start a reckless war with neighbouring Ethiopia? I think Al Shabaab for sure will be tempted to grab the chance to get the sympathy of the public and side with the Egyptians . As for Somaliland , Egyptian proxy is a matter of history. Somalilanders have long realised that the people of Ethiopia are their next of kin and that any conflict incited by outsiders will not be entertained.
Somalia on the other hand is unpredictable and could fall into the Egyptian trap and could start arming the locals in region 5 of Ethiopia which is mostly inhabited by ethnic Somalis.
Geographically any Nile water conflict will not be in favour of Egypt because South Sudan has established good relations with Ethiopia to export its oil through Djibouti via Ethiopia. Egypt will also not have effective support from the Arab League because of the MiddleEast democracy uprising and the civil war in Syria.
Ethiopia has long been fully deprived of utilising the Nile waters by the 1929 Nile agreement signed by the British to protect the supply of water to the cotton plantations in Sudan and Egypt. The treaty has recently been ratified and or /annulled to give full access to the Nile waters to the countries in the upstream.
It would , therefore , be wise for the Egyptians to keep their hands-off and stop meddling in the affairs of the Horn of Africa countries.
Mo Ali
Source: www.Medeshivalley.com

Ethiopia: Muslim Protesters Face Unfair Trial

April 2, 2013, 

(Nairobi) – The prosecution of 29 Muslim protest leaders and others charged under Ethiopia’s deeply flawed anti-terrorism law raises serious fair trial concerns. The trial is scheduled to resume in Addis Ababa on April 2, 2013, after a 40-day postponement.

The case has already had major due process problems. Some defendants have alleged ill-treatment in pre-trial detention. The government has provided defendants limited access to legal counsel and has taken actions that undermined their presumption of innocence. Since January 22 the High Court has closed the hearings to the public, including the media, diplomats, and family members of defendants.

“There seems to be no limit to the Ethiopian government’s use of its anti-terrorism law and unfair trials to stop peaceful dissent,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “The government’s treatment of these Muslim leaders bears the hallmarks of a politically motivated prosecution.”

The defendants include Muslim leaders and activists arrested and detained in July 2012 following six months of public protests in Addis Ababa and other towns by members of Ethiopia’s Muslim community over alleged government interference in religious affairs. Others on trial include Yusuf Getachew, former managing editor of the now defunct Islamic magazine Yemuslimoch Guday, and two Muslim nongovernmental organizations, allegedly managed by three of the defendants. Solomon Kebede was arrested and is being held under the anti-terrorism law.

According to official figures, Muslims make up approximately 30 percent of Ethiopia’s population. The protest movement began after the government insisted that the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs accept members from an Islamic sect known as al Ahbash and tried to impose its teachings on the Muslim community. The government also sought to influence the operations of the Awalia mosque in Addis Ababa.

In January 2012 members of the Muslim community created a committee to represent it in discussions with the government. Nine of the 17 members of this committee are among those on trial: Abubekar Ahmed, Ahmedin Jebel, Ahmed Mustafa, Kamil Shemsu, Jemal Yassin, Yassin Nuru, Sheikh Sultan Aman, Sheikh Mekete Muhe, and Sheikh Tahir Abdulkadir. They were arrested as the Ethiopian security forces began a major crackdown on the protests at Awalia and Anwar mosques in Addis Ababa and on protests in other cities as well, arresting and assaulting hundreds of protesters. Although the government has not released numbers, credible sources told Human Rights Watch that as many as 1,000 people were arrested in July alone.

Journalists attempting to cover or report on the protests were also detained or intimidated. Despite these arrests, weekly protests have continued throughout the country.

As in Ethiopia’s earlier terrorism trials of journalists and opposition leaders, the current trial has been marred by serious due process violations.Defendants have had erratic access to lawyers and relatives, and a number of the defendants were initially held for almost two months without access to legal counsel.

Lawyers for the defendants have repeatedly complained to the courts about the treatment of their clients, and alleged that the Muslim committee members and Getachew were mistreated during their pre-trial detention at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Department, known as Maekelawi prison, in Addis Ababa, which is notorious for torture. The complaints do not appear to have been appropriately investigated. Both the first instance court and the higher court have claimed not to have the jurisdiction over these matters.

The defendants have all been charged with “terrorist acts” under article 3 of Ethiopia’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and with planning and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts under article 4. Descriptions of the charges in the initial charge sheet do not contain the basic elements of the crimes that the defendants are alleged to have committed. 

Human Rights Watch, other human rights organizations, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have repeatedly raised concerns about the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation’s overly broad provisions, which have been used to criminalize legitimate free expression and peaceful dissent. Thirty-four people, including eleven journalists and at least four opposition supporters, are known to have been sentenced under the law between late 2011 and mid-2012 in apparently politically motivated trials.

The government has also undermined the defendants’ presumption of innocence by broadcasting inflammatory material and accusations against them on state television. In February state-run Ethiopian Television (ETV) broadcast a program called “Jihadawi Harakat” (“Jihad War”) that included footage of at least five of the defendants filmed in pre-trial detention, including Muslim committee members Kamil Shemsu, Ahmed Mustafa, Abubekar Ahmed, and Yassin Nuru, and the activist Nuru Turki. The program equates the Muslim protest movement in Ethiopia with Islamist extremist groups such as Somalia’s armed al-Shabaab militants, and casts the Muslim protest leaders as terrorists. The High Court granted an injunction prohibiting the broadcast but ETV ignored the court order.

The ETV broadcast was the latest in a series of television programs – many of them produced by the government’s Communications Ministry in collaboration with police or security services –that try to smear the defendants in terrorism trials. In November 2011, ETV broadcast “Akeldama” (“Land of Blood”) during the terrorism trial of 24 people, including prominent members of the political opposition and journalists. The program, which included film of several of the defendants in pre-trial detention, apparently under duress, described the defendants’ alleged involvement in a “terrorist plot.”

Two Swedish journalists were the subject of another similar piece in 2011 after they were arrested in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region. They were subjected to a mock execution during the filming.

“The unfair trial of the Muslim protest activists is compounded by the government’s TV program that demonizes them as ‘terrorists’ and threatens to raise suspicion of all Muslims and their ongoing protests,” Lefkow said. “The Ethiopian government is prosecuting people who are simply trying to protect their rights to religious freedom and free speech.”

The government has also continued to use the anti-terrorism law to silence the media.

Kebede, Getachew’s successor at Yemuslimoch Guday, has been held for more than two months in pre-trial detention without charges. Heis being held in Maekelawi prison, withoutaccess to legal counsel, which heightens concerns about his treatment and safety.

On March 15 the first instance court granted the police an additional 28 days for further investigation in Kebede’s case. The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation permits pre-trial detention for up to four months without charge, one of the longest periods in anti-terrorism legislation worldwide,in violation of Ethiopia’s international legal obligations. Under the Ethiopian constitution detainees must be charged or released within 48 hours.

“Rather than jailing peaceful protesters and critical journalists, the government should amend the anti-terrorism law and stop these politically motivated trials,” Lefkow said. “The government should be reaching out to the Muslim community and discussing their grievances rather than silencing their voices and leaders.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/02/ethiopia-muslim-protesters-face-unfair-trial

Ethiopia opens cultural centre, coffee shop in India

New Delhi, March 20 (IANS) Ethiopia, one of the world's most ancient countries, is broadening its cultural footprint in India, with the opening of the first Ethiopian Cultural Centre, complete with a traditional coffee shop, in the capital.
The centre - a sprawling facility with crafts display rooms, meeting space and an elegant coffee shop in the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri - will serve the "purpose of introducing Ethiopian culture to India and to the international community", Gennete Zewide, the ambassador of Ethiopia to India, said.
The centre was inaugurated Tuesday evening by the Ethiopian state minister of industry Ato Tadesse Haile in the presence of the Ethiopian envoy, Indian businessmen, a host of dignitaries from African nations, here for the 9th India-Africa Conclave, and members of the diplomatic corps.
Addressing the inauguration, Zewide said the major attraction of the Ethiopian Cultural Centre was an Ethiopian Coffee Shop that will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and promote the country's rich coffee tradition in India as a symbol of its cultural bonding. The act of drinking coffee is a ceremonial women's bonding rite in Africa. Known as the 'Coffee Ceremony', the ritual has a "cultural, social and economic significance", Zewide said.
"The women of the community - who work for long hours - sit over coffee to relax and discuss their problems," Zewide said. The envoy said she was also planning to add a library for students to study Ethiopian culture and popularise it".
"There should be more people to people cultural relationship. We are hoping that the centre will not be limited to showcasing Ethiopian culture alone. This should be the seat of other African cultures as well. My other colleagues (from African nations represented in India) will use it to demonstrate their culture," the envoy said.
Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa with 91 million people, and India share a history of relationship that spans more than 2,000 years, state industry minister Ato Tadesse Haile said. "Both countries were trading various items along the Indian Ocean. Currently both Ethiopia and India enjoy political relations and a fast-growing mutually beneficial economic cooperation," the minister said.
In the cultural sector, the two nations engage with the exchange of a large number of students. "We will be able to play a significant role with the centre to introduce India to Ethiopian culture," the minister said putting it in context.
He said although India and Ethiopia were geographically apart, the centre would show how close the countries were.
Ethiopia has inked a new MoU with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for greater cooperation in the industrial sector as well. The inauguartion of the centre was marked by a bouquet of the country's colourful performance traditions.http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2013/03/20/79--Ethiopia-opens-cultural-centre-coffee-shop-in-India-.html

Ethiopia: When Foreign Investors and Donors become complacent on crimes of corruption of the ruling regime

The struggle for democracy and freedom is a war on the crimes of tyranny. We have to make sure crime doesn’t, shouldn’t and would never pay. We have to declare criminals mustn’t getaway anywhere in the world to protect the people and save the country.

By Teshome Debalke, Ecadforum

No one yet scratched the surface to examine the extent of the Ethiopian ruling regime led by Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) intricate economic crimes against the people of Ethiopia and Donor countries.
Ethiopian ruling regime led by Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) The gullible foreign community either knowingly became complacent on the crimes of the regime or taken for a ride as victims of the elaborate corruption of the savvy regime.
The accomplices of the regime in Diaspora that carry Western passport and talking the language of business have lots to do to cover up for the regime and can no longer be ignored in their conspiracy to commit crime against the people of Ethiopia.
TPLF understanding of the international community’ gullibility and low expectation, its grasp of the kinds of foreign investors’ have the appetite to make quick bucks in extractive industries, its ability to target corruption prone Diaspora investors and its awareness of the changing world power politics and where the resources are channeled are some of the its assets to shield its criminality with relative ease. To its credit, TPLF ability to organize it operatives to sing its tune as well as the opposition division on irrelevant issues helped it getaway with almost everything it does in the last two decades of its rule.
Absence of organized and independent investigation, the regime and its accomplices got away with crimes of the century. The regime’s sophisticated control of the flow of information, the means and ways of economic production, and key economic sectors with its clandestine business enterprises are part of the elaborate institutionalization of corruption to hide its crimes.
The recent conference held in India regarding the massive land grab by foreign investors’ in Africa opened another window of opportunity to look deeper in the regimes operation. The fact land is the regimes main political tool to engineer its ethnic cleansing, extortion and wealth transfer to its cronies as well as a means to earn foreign exchange by parading investors tells us its preference for partner in crime are from unexpected places. It also explains why the regime held onto land; to take the population hostage to sustain its rule.
Little has been done formally to scrutinize the regime and its accomplices that are running amok; destabilizing the population.
The conference that was organized by Centre for Social Development (CSD) of India in association with Kalpavriksh, PEACE, and The Oakland Institute of the USA. The gathering was one of a kind that exposed the Ethiopian regime’s elaborate corruption and impunity, thanks to Obang Metho of the Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia. It also reviled investors’ impunity when they partner with authoritarian regimes in Africa.
Missing in the discussion was the ruling regime’s run parasitical enterprises that are colluding with foreign investors to legitimize the land grab and the institutionalize corruption. But, foreign governments’ complicity; ignoring international standards and convention when dealing with nations under authoritarian regimes were articulated by both participants.
For example, India investors along others that are enticed with lucrative incentives by the ruling regime to invest in Ethiopia are aware of the obvious corruption but willing to participate anyways. It reviled the level of impunity of the regime, foreign investors and the respective foreign governments that support the regime and the respective investors.
The conference opened up the tip of the iceberg what has been done behind closed doors and away from the Media with 100s of Asia and the Middle Eastern investors. Many more politically motivated Diaspora investors also conspired to shield the regime from scrutiny while they enjoy the benefit of high level corruption. In the eye of the law, all investors knowingly or unknowingly became accomplice of the regime’s crimes of corruption with little or no legal justification for their actions.
The follow up Debate hosted by Rajiya Sabha on RSTV, Indian World program titled Lands and Natural Resource Grabs in Africa was also a rare opportunity to get the primary offender to answer the burning questions. But, like always, the regime fear of the Media out of its control choice to hide. The program featured Ambassador Vijay Sakhuja of India; defending investors and his government’s extension of credit for the Ethiopian regime’s sugar industry project. The Ambassador’s repeated attempt to hide behind sovereignty defense of regimes, investors and government was simply diplomatic double talk than reality. Lack of transparency in land grab and the related rampant human right violation and corruption is a crime of international law and convention and can’t hold water hiding behind diplomatic technicality. When he referred it as ‘local matter that isn’t the concern of his government or foreign investors he, in his official capacity admitting the government of India is a willing participants; implicating its complicity in crimes of corruption and human right violation in the land grab affair.
The absence of the Ethiopian regime’s representative in the panel discussion made the Ambassador unofficial defender of the regime when he volunteer to speak on it behalf . The last time we checked the Ethiopian Ambassador was Genet Zewdie but the official embassy website wouldn’t revile who at presents represents Ethiopia interest in the Embassy. It should be recalled Ambassador Genet Zewdie was instrumental to entice investors by offering them unlimited access to Ethiopian land ‘for as long as they want; almost for free’.
Executive Directors Anuradha Mittal of Oakland Institute and Obang Metho of the Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia (SMNE) raised important issues the regime must answer sooner or later. They further exposed the accomplices are not only private investors but foreign governments including India itself, as the official representative reviled.
The Indian Ambassador that is alleged to have family investment in Ethiopia continue to defend Indian investors and his government’s extension of credit line worth over 600 million dollar to build Sugar industry that is directly related with land grab reviled the complicity of the Indian government and the web of interest groups that are given an open season on the public land in partnership with TPLF led regime and affiliated businesses.
Whether the ruling regime misled investors or they conspired with the regime for their own self interest requires further investigations and inquires. But, what is clear with the statement of the Ambassador; crimes of the ruling regime are local matter that doesn’t concern foreign investors or governments. In other words, the government of India providing credit line worth over 600 million US dollar for the regime to develop just sugar industry is legitimate investment.
These kinds of impunity by foreign investors and governments are the results of TPLF’s intricate misinformation in its plan to institutionalize corruption in order to legitimize its misrule and grand corruption. Indian as well as other governments in Asia and Middle East that are not capable of finding out they are doing business with the ruling party owned businesses and exporters in the name of investment must be complete fools or conspiring with the regime. Therefore, to claim propping up the ruling regime’s businesses interest by financing its enterprises is a local matter and expecting the people of Ethiopia to honor the agreements is like claiming ignorance of the law as a defense. Such self incriminating statement from an official government representative of India further reinforce the crises of foreign investment in Ethiopia and through out Africa is bigger than the small time tyrants’ corruption.
Though, Oakland Institute and Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia just began to scratch the surface of the regime’s and investors’ transgression and foreign government and Aid agencies’ complicity, the responsibility squarely rests on Ethiopians- advocacy groups, opposition political parties, the Media and think-tanks that must be better organize and coordinate to get to the bottom of hundreds of crimes of corruption of the regime and its accomplices as well as the complicity of foreign investors, governments and Aid agencies.
Beyond land grab, there are many other economic crimes the ruling regime perpetuates in every sector that cries for extensive investigations. The occasional reaction of one incidence after another isn’t enough to bring about accountability of the responsible parties for crime against the people an the nation.
For example, among the most damaging institutional offenders are the TPLF owned banks, saving and loan, money transfer outfits and credit establishments that have a stranglehold of the financial market. The infamous Wogagen Bank’s role in financing the regime’s corrupt practices, including money laundering is an area that requires extensive investigation by experts. The clandestine Bank that is exclusively run for the benefit of the ruling regime’s crony businesses is the center of crime of manipulating the financial sector as well as financing its corrupt businesses outfits.
Under no law and convention the international community can defend these kinds of flagrant violation of the regime while they are showering it with grants and loans in the name of Ethiopia… development and helping the poor.
In all cases, the role of the ruling regime owned businesses including, 100s of enterprises disguised as The Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) that control the bulk of the economy are yet to be investigated by independent body in order to bring the conspirators to justice.
With all the crises in the economy and the rampant corruption of the ruling regime and its accomplices visible for necked eye, the absences of organizations that investigate and take actions on the crimes remain unattended. The struggles to bring about democratic rule; where crimes of the ruling regime’s and its accomplices’ corruptions must be the # 1 priority. The so called Medias and pseudo institutions that recycle propaganda to help the regime continue its corruption must also be accountable.
Ethiopians in Diaspora with vast knowledge and the resources should establish organizations exclusively to fight corruption and other economic crimes of the regime, the investors and their accomplices in the form of Transparency International. They can use the available resources like Global Coalition for Africa Principles to Combat Corruption in African Countries to clean up rampant institutional corruption that has become the hallmark of the ruling regime of Ethiopia and many so called investors.
Independent Medias have the responsibility to dedicate a good part of their time and resources and collaborate with others to expose rampant corruption never seen in the history of the country.
The ruling regime controlled Federal Ethics and Corruption Commission that supposedly fights corruption is the # 1 conspirator in covering up for the mother-of-all-corruption of the regime’s affiliated Merchants of Death. The political front Commission in its two decades of existence has never investigated the ruling regime’s businesses that are the main cause of corruption while it is chasing small fishes to cover up for the big fish that is gabbling up everything in sight.
The regime’s self-serving Commission sole responsible person to fight corruption is Commissioner Ali Sulaiman Mohammed. Unknown to many Ethiopians, no one knows why he was hand picked as a Commissioner of the toothless agency. Since there is no information about his credential on the official website of the Commission, it is obvious the regime’s strategy to setup dummy agencies and hide its officials to hoodwink the public and the international community obevious.
Other organizations that claim to fight corruption continue to cover up for the regime. The famous Transparency International’s sister Chapter in Ethiopia, Transparency Ethiopia setup as non governmental organization to fight corruption is as toothless as the government Commission. Led by Dr. Berhanu Asefa, Chair of the Board, the organization has noting worth of its name to expose or educate the public on the rampant corruption of the ruling regime. In fact, the latest news on its website is in August of 2010. How TE carrying the good name of well known corruption fighter without doing anything worth its name and repetition of the parent organization justify its existance demand inquiry and investigation.
In article titled The Art of Bleeding a Country Dry, Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam articulated the level of the Ethiopian regime’s corruption.
“The devastating impact of corruption on the continent’s poor becomes self-evident as political leaders and public officials siphon off resources from critical school, hospital, road and other public works and community projects to line their pockets. For instance, reports of widespread corruption in Ethiopia in the form of outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments and gain are commonplace. The anecdotal stories of corruption in Ethiopia are shocking to the conscience. Doctors are unable to treat patients at the public hospitals because medicine and supplies are diverted for private gain. Tariffs are imposed on medicine and medical supplies brought into the country for public charity. Businessmen complain that they are unable to get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners.
Publicly-owned assets are acquired by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. Businessmen must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political prosecutions. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. Two months ago, Ethiopia’s former president Dr. Negasso Gidada offered substantial evidence of systemic political corruption by documenting the misuse and abuse of political power for partisan electoral advantage. Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley stated that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.” [As of December 2011, over two years after the investigation was launched, the State Department has not publicly released the results of its investigation”.
The Professor’s bone chilling expose of the regime’s corruption must be formally followed up by advocacy institutions and independent Media to challenge the offenders in every international venue available.
Ethiopians should also become vigilant and demand the regime’s operatives and puppets to disclose their business holding and call on the international community for independent investigators towards bringing the conspirators to justice.
The struggle to bring about democracy and rule of law isn’t limited to chasing the ruling regime and its conspirators in crime against humanity and corruption. It requires strong and independent institutions, including the Media as vanguard of the people’s interest to transform the nation ruled by law than by the jungle directives and proclamations of the regime.
Time and time again we Africans miss the forest for the tree when we cheer individuals and groups that steer our emotion to be against anything than for something and fall for the same tyranny over-and-over again.
This time around must be different, and the signs are encouraging and calls for celebration. Ethiopians are no longer divided by… to the benefit of tyranny. The grassroots movement that emerged since Woyane tyranny lost hands down in the May 2005’s election not only taking root but scaring the paranoid regime and all others that see division as a means to their end.
Ethiopians are united; there is no other way out for Woyane tyranny but to surrender. The desperate regime’s scramble to preserve its corrupt ethnic tyranny will cost it more than surrendering peacefully.
Woyane operatives and supporters also have two choices. They either abandon Woyane to join their people in the struggle while they can or loss their freedom forever.

The struggle for democracy and freedom is a war on the crimes of tyranny. We have to make sure crime doesn’t, shouldn’t and would never pay. We have to declare criminals mustn’t getaway anywhere in the world to protect the people and save the country. http://indepthafrica.com/ethiopia-when-foreign-investors-and-donors-become-complacent-on-crimes-of-corruption-of-the-ruling-regime/#.UVnYMa4Rgc0                                      

⌂ News EAST AFRICAN COOKING GROUP MIXES IN OLD TRADITIONS

In City Heights, mothers teach their Americanized daughters cultural ways while blending in some personal time

By Patricia Leigh Brown 12:01 a.m.March 30, 2013Updated1:05 p.m.March 29, 2013

SAN DIEGO — For many daughters, the kitchen contains their mother’s secrets. In the tumult of pots and pans, the pinches of sugar and salt, reside recipes perfected over time without cookbooks — experience and intuition the only guides.

For several East African daughters in City Heights, a neighborhood that is a major West Coast portal for refugees, the opportunity to cook twice a month as a group with their mothers is a chance to steep themselves in Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean culinary traditions, passed down through generations.

“We have a common goal: to learn from each other,” said Ayan Sheikh, a recent graduate of California State University Bakersfield and a nurse, who missed the cooking group so much at school that she asked her aunt to post the sessions on YouTube.

The gatherings started two years ago with 10 mothers and daughters; today, there are more than 30 regulars. The group has multiple goals: helping daughters growing up in the United States to understand their heritage while encouraging mothers to adapt healthy versions of American favorites such as quiche and pizza.

“Mothers were saying, ‘I’m losing my daughter; she’s not eating my food,’” said Sahra Abdi, founder of United Women of East Africa, which sponsors the classes and provides mental health services and leadership skills for refugee women. “And the daughters were saying, ‘We see food on the table, and we don’t know how to make it.’”

For young women such as Sheikh, who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and whose family lived in Kenya, Yemen, Atlanta and Ohio before settling in San Diego, the mother-daughter kinship is more important than achieving the perfect sambusa (similar to the savory Indian turnovers called samosas).

“When you’re in the kitchen, you talk about everything,” Sheikh said. In the kitchen’s culinary whirlwind, conversations can turn quickly from the benefits of a wooden spoon to who has a cold and whose wedding is coming up.

The lingua franca is English rather than Somali, Amharic or Tigrinya. In this relaxed setting, women feel more comfortable sharing concerns, whether it is anxiety about seeing a doctor or how to read a prescription.

“In the kitchen,” Abdi said, “we can tell them, ‘Hang in there,’ or, ‘This happened to me.’”

City Heights, where residents speak more than 30 languages and 80 dialects, is one of the densest and most diverse communities in the state.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, it has been a magnet for refugees fleeing brutal conflicts, including Somalians, Eritreans, Sudanese, Somali Bantus, Kurds and ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

It is the unofficial capital of San Diego’s East African diaspora, home to three major mosques, Islamic after-school programs and halal markets (foods adhering to Muslim dietary practices). But the neighborhood also has four times more fast-food restaurants near schools than other San Diego neighborhoods, and some of the highest concentrations of crime and poverty in the region, according to the Mid-City Community Advocacy Network.

Perhaps predictably, East African families have begun to experience chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. In Africa, notes Michelle Zive, a dietitian and executive director of the Network for a Healthy California, daily life involved intense physical activity. In the U.S., children from East African families are leading more sedentary lives, particularly young women, whose exercise options are limited by modesty issues.

 Over huge pots of Ethiopian lentils spiced with hot berbere, women are addressing health challenges together, modifying the quantities of sugar and oil in some — though not all — traditional dishes. “The young girls are eating Cheetos,” said Amina Sheik Mohamed, a Network for a Healthy California regional director and cooking group leader. “Some of the ladies were getting high blood pressure and getting sick.”

The group’s mission includes transforming supermarket staples such as bottled spaghetti sauce to be healthier and more culturally attuned (just add potatoes, cooked spinach and hot sauce).

Adina Batnitzky, a sociologist at the University of San Diego, recently did a focus group on nutrition patterns among East African women with Theresa Sinicrope Talley, a marine biologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They found a diet heavy on halal meat and lacking in fresh fish and seafood, which are plentiful back home but hard to find in halal stores.

Many women said they had never laid eyes on the Pacific Ocean, only miles away. In Africa, there were no free- zers or processed foods, they observed, and families would eat every meal together rather than “at their own time and place,” as one woman put it.

Such strong social ties, as evidenced by the cooking group, are a major health asset, Batnitzky said.

“It’s about connection,” explained Abdi, the mother of two. “When you’re around other women, you feel valued and supported. You get a lot of positive vibes.”

Those vibes were on display one recent Saturday, as more than two dozen women in kaleidoscopic headscarves gathered at a member’s house in Lemon Grove.

In the kitchen, Halimo Farah flipped sabayad in an iron skillet, demonstrating how the naan-like snack gets brown and puffy. Saffron tilapia grilled on the patio as little brothers zigzagged around on scooters. A group of daughters sat around a huge bowl, mixing cream cheese and coconut for sambusas, stuffed triangles made this day with tortillas.

“It’s like folding origami with food inside,” said 10-year-old Mona Adam.

The completed dishes were laid out ceremoniously on a long carpet: injera, the spongy sour Ethiopian flatbread; mesir wat, the Ethiopian red lentil stew; sweet and savory sambusas; pilafs; sabayad; mushmush; and a traditional silver bowl and pitcher for washing hands.

Mona compared the Saturdays to “having Thanksgiving every day” before joining the girls in hand-clapping games.

Beholding the feast, which never includes alcohol, Abdi reflected on the moment.

“We don’t have happy hours,” she said. “But this is a happy hour for us.”

Patricia Leigh Brown is a contributor to the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, a media partner of U-T San Diego. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/30/tp-east-african-cooking-group-mixes-in-old/

How Ethiopians benefit from Indian (and other) land investors

By: Metasebia Tadesse

Land-grab noise is aimed at scaring off investment from emerging economies

The article in The Hindu, by Ashish Kothari, “How Ethiopians are being pushed off their land” (Op-Ed, February 19, 2013) is far from the truth and makes charges that are unfounded.

Had the organisers of the so-called “India-Ethiopia Seminar on Land Investment” been interested in presenting a legitimate report to the Indian public, they would have invited the Embassy of Ethiopia in New Delhi or Indian investors who can give first hand information on Ethiopia’s land policy.

The prime focus of the policy of the government of Ethiopia is ensuring food security of its citizens. To this end, the priority area is the enhancement of agricultural productivity at household levels. This implies that the bulk of the government’s positive intervention in the area of ensuring food security involves helping the millions of smallholder farmers in the country. The government believes that such a focus can best address the bulk of the population.

Not only is the government focused on providing the necessary support and leadership to small holders, but it has a clear policy that no small holding farmer will be dispossessed of his/her land for the purpose of foreign investors intending to engage in commercial farming. There is absolutely no farmer displaced from his or her land for any such purpose.

In this regard it is worth noting that most criticism against the government had in the past largely been about the government’s “over-protection” of smallholders and its reluctance to fully embrace massive commercial farming.

Now that the government has launched an ambitious Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) to double the nation’s GDP in five years, the role of agro-investment becomes all the more decisive. Most of the companies will be involved in the production of highly needed cereals, which will not only earn the nation highly needed foreign currency but also contribute to the ensuring of food security and food self-sufficiency in the country.

It is also the policy of the government that large swathes of hitherto uncultivable land in very remote and inaccessible parts of the country should be made available to foreign investors interested to invest in commercial farming. The government wants to put to use hitherto-unused and mostly inaccessible-swathes of land for the purpose of augmenting its campaign to ensure food security.

Negligible displacement

Here again, the focus of the GTP is that beyond scaling up the productivity of small holders, more attention must be paid to raise the level of contribution of extensive and mechanised farming in the nation’s endeavour to extricate itself out of poverty.

The majority of these lands are to be found in sparsely populated regions of the country, where the risk of displacing local populations for this purpose is far too negligible, at worst. The areas being allocated for this purpose are totally inaccessible in terms not only of infrastructure development, but also those which have hardly been inhabited by people. So in all fairness, the talk about people being displaced for the purpose of land lease is unfounded at best and even deliberately contrived at worst.

The Government of Ethiopia takes the issue of climate change and social impact seriously. The lands that are made available for investors are thoroughly studied in order to ensure that the investment projects’ impact on the livelihood of the local communities as well as their impact on climate is kept to the most minimum possible.

Any reader of the article can say with certainty that we don’t hear much fuss over similar projects in other parts of the world such as Latin America. It can be surmised that the noise about “land grab” in Africa has everything to do with the paternalism of some of the “activists” as well as with the identity of the investors who are currently benefiting from the deals.

Quite obviously, the investors are mainly from India, China and Middle East countries — unlike in the case of, say Latin America, where such projects are mainly owned by western investors.

It would, therefore, be important, particularly for a newspaper like The Hindu, which mainly targets Indian readers, to keep this fact in mind.

The noise about land grab also has another face. It is a clear reminder of the condescending outlook reflected by many western institutions doubting the capability of African states to sincerely advocate the interest of their citizens.

Hence the whole report of the so-called seminar was a reflection of the usual effort to daunt investment activities from emerging economies like that of India.

(Metasebia Tadesse is Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, New Delhi.)

Land and Ethiopia’s Corruptocracy

MARCH 31, 2013 11:22PM

The silence of Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds”

by: Alemayehu G. Mariam - Professor

Professor A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the renowned Indian scientist  (“Missile Man of India”)  and Eleventh President of India (2002-2007) said, “If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.”

Recently, the World Bank released its 448-page World Bank (WB) report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia” with evidence galore showing that Ethiopia under the absolute dictatorship of the Meles Zenawi regime has become a full-fledged corruptocracy (a regime controlled and operated by a small clique of corrupt-to-the-core vampiric kleptocrats who cling to power to enrich themselves at public expense). Perhaps the report’s findings should not come as surprise to anyone since “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Over the past several weeks, I have made a number of cursory remarks on the shocking findings of the WB report. I have also discreetly appealed to a segment of  Ethiopia’s  “beautiful minds”  (its teachers, professors, economists, political and social scientists, lawyers, and other members of the learned professions)  to critically examine the report and inform their compatriots on the devastating impact of  corruption on the future of their poor country and make some recommendations on how to deal with it. I even challenged the political opposition to issue a “white paper” and make crystal clear their position on accountability and transparency and make some concrete proposals to remedy the endemic corruption that has metastasized in the Ethiopian body politic.  

I have yet to see any substantive analysis or commentary on the WB’s “diagnosis of corruption” in Ethiopia in the popular media or in the scholarly journals;  nor have I seen any proposals on how to sever the vampiric tentacles of corruption sucking the lifeblood from the Ethiopian people. Could it be that Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” can’t handle ugly truths? Or do Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds”  turn faint-hearted when it comes to speaking ugly truths to power?

Few can tell the ugly truth about corruption in Ethiopia more bluntly thanGlobal Financial Integrity  (GFI), the renowned organization that reports on “illicit financial flows” (illegal capital flight, mispricing, bulk cash movements, hawala transactions, smuggling, etc.) out of developing countries. In 2011, GFI told the world, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.” 

When the late dictator Meles Zenawi was asked in July 2011 about his feelings concerning the use of the word “famine” synonymously with Ethiopia by the Oxford Dictionary,  he said, “… Like any citizen, I am very sad. I am ashamed. It is degrading. A society that built the Lalibela churches… Axum obelisks… some thousand years ago is unable to cultivate the land and feed itself….  That is very sad. It is very shameful. Of all the things, to go out begging for one’s daily bread, to be a beggar nation is dehumanizing. Therefore, I feel great shame.”  I too feel great shame that Ethiopia has become not only a “beggar nation” over the past 21 years, but also that she has now become synonymous with the word “corruption”. It is unbearable that the land of “13 months of sunshine” has become the land of 13 months of the darkness of corruption.

Speaking the ugly truth to power

Given the icy silence of Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds”, it is my humble duty and unenviable job to continue to speak the ugly truth about corruption to the powers that be in Ethiopia. For years, I have written numerous commentaries on corruption in Ethiopia as a serious human rights violation. I agree with Peter Eigen, founder and chairman of Transparency International (Corruption Index) that “corruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights.” I also believe corruption undermines  good governance, cripples the rule of law and destroys citizens’ trust in political leaders, public officials and political institutions.

In 2007 when Ethiopia’s auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported that Birr 600 million of state funds were missing from the regional government coffers, Meles fired Lema and publicly defended the regional administrations’ “right to burn money.” In my December 2008 commentary “The Bleeping Business of Corruption in Ethiopia,” I argued that “corruption in Ethiopia is an evil with a thousand faces. It is woven into the fabric of the political culture.” Corruption is the modus operandi of the regime in power in Ethiopia today. Former president Dr. Negasso Gidada clearly understood the gravity of the situation when he declared in 2001 that “corruption has riddled state enterprises to the core,” adding that the government would show “an iron fist against corruption and graft as the illicit practices had now become endemic”. In 2013, the business of corruption is the biggest business in Ethiopia.

In my November 2009 commentary, “Africorruption, Inc.”, I described the tip of the iceberg of the web of corruption in Ethiopia by synthesizing some of the eye popping anecdotal evidence. Dr. Negasso documented corruption in the misuse and abuse of political power for partisan electoral advantage. Coincidentally, in 2009, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley announced that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister's party.” (For reasons unknown, but not difficult to guess, the U.S. State Department has never released the findings of its investigation.)

The ruling regime’s “Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission” (FEAC) in 2008 documented the fact that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the country’s principal bank. FEAC described the heist as a “huge scandal that took place in the Country's National Bank and took many Ethiopians by surprise… The  corruptors dared to steal lots of pure gold bars that belonged to the Ethiopian people replacing them with gilded irons... Some employees of the Bank, business people, managers and other government employees were allegedly involved in this disastrous and disgracing scandal.” 

FEAC also reported that “there was another big corruption case at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation that took many Ethiopians by surprise” which involved the “competitive tendering for the supply of telecommunication equipment.” FEAC  “found out that nearly 200 million USD has been lost to corruption through the entire fraudulent and corrupt process…. In another case involving a telecommunications deal with the Chinese, a high level regime official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks for himself and other regime officials.” (Even though high level bank officials were fingered in the gold heist, there is no evidence that any one of them has ever been prosecuted.)

In my November 2011 commentary “To Catch Africa’s Biggest Thieves Hiding in America!”, I called attention to a Wikileaks cablegram which confirmed long held suspicions about massive corruption in the current ruling party in Ethiopia, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF): “Upon taking power in 1991… [the TPLF] liquidated non-military assets to found a series of companies whose profits would be used as venture capital to rehabilitate the war-torn Tigray region’s economy…[with] roughly US $100 million… Throughout the 1990s…,  no new EFFORT  [Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray owned and operated by TPLF] ventures have been established despite significant profits, lending credibility to the popular perception that the ruling party and its members are drawing on endowment resources to fund their own interests or for personal gain.” According to the World Bank, “roughly half of the Ethiopian national economy is accounted for by companies held by an EPRDF-affiliated business group called the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT)… EFFORT’s freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms on loans from government banks.”

When 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports had simply vanished (not unlike the gold bars that walked out of the National Bank) from the warehouses in 2011, Meles Zenawi called a meeting of commodities traders and threatened to “cut off their hands” if they should steal coffee in the future. In a videotaped statement, Meles told the traders he will forgive them this time because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”.

In my December 2011 commentary “The Art of Bleeding a Country Dry”, I argued, “No one knows corruption -- the economics of kleptocracy -- better than [Meles] Zenawi.  The facts of Zenawi’s  corruptonomics are plain for all to see: The [Ethiopian] economy is in the stranglehold of businesses owned or dominated by Zenawi family members, cronies, supporters or hangers-on.”

“Diagnosing Corruption in (in the land of) Ethiopia”

Transparency International (Corruption Index) broadly defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption manifests itself in grand and petty ways. “Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good.” Grand corruption often involves political corruption in which political decision makers manipulate “policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth.” Petty corruption often occurs when the law enforcement officials or bureaucratic functionaries exact payments from “ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies” .

Corruption in Ethiopia is no longer a question of disparate anecdotal evidence or an issue of intellectual debate.  Corruption has become the loathsome disease of the Ethiopian body politic. That is why the World Bank carefully titled its report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”. Diagnosis refers to the clinical process of identifying a disease. The 448-page World Bank report has diagnosed corruption as the metastasizing cancer of the Ethiopian body politic.

Corruption in land is the root of all corruption in Ethiopia! Grand corruption in land originates from the upper circles of power in the public and private sector. The powerful political and economic elites in Ethiopia exploit the anarchic, arbitrary, secretive, unaccountable and confused governance of the ruling regime to weave their tangled webs of corruption. The World Bank report states that “the land sector [in Ethiopia] is particularly susceptible to corruption and rent seeking [using social or political institutions to redistribute wealth among different groups without creating new wealth (profit seeking)].” Corruption  in  land in Ethiopia is inherent (as the old communist ideologues used to say, “part and parcel of”) in “the way policy and legislation are formulated and enforced.”

The World Bank report explains that corruption in the land sector in Ethiopia occurs in several ways. First and foremost, “elite and senior officials” snatch the most desirable lands in the country for themselves. These fat cats manipulate the “weak policy and legal framework and poor systems to implement existing policies and laws” to their advantage. They engage in “fraudulent actions to allocate land to themselves in both urban and rural areas and to housing associations and developers in urban areas.” These “influential and well-connected individuals are able to have land allocated to them often in violation of existing laws and regulations.”

In the capital Addis Ababa, it is “nearly impossible to a get a plot of land without bribing city administration officials.” These officials not only demand huge bribes but have also “conspired with land speculators” and facilitated bogus “housing cooperatives [to become] vehicles for a massive land grab. It is estimated that about 15,000 forged titles have been issued in Addis Ababa in the past five years.”

Management of rural land is similarly deeply infected with corruption. “In rural areas, officials have distorted the definition of ‘public land’ to mean ‘government land’". Officials define “public purpose” in applying expropriation which is believed to be a leading cause of “landlessness”. Officials have also “engaged in land grabbing to grant land to functionaries” and this is “happening at the woreda (district) level and is being copied by the elected committee members at kebele (subdistrict) level.”  According to the World Bank report, “Almost all transactions involving land most often incorporate corruption because there is no clear policy or transparent regulation concerning land.”

It is stunning to learn from the report that the ruling regime does not even have the most elementary system of  land management in place. “Rural areas have no maps of registered holdings… In urban areas, there is little mapping of registered property. Encumbrances and restrictions are not recorded in the registers, and the encumbrances, if registered, are listed in a separate document. Land use restrictions are not recorded in the register. There is no inventory of public land, which affects the efficient management of public land and creates opportunities for the illegal allocation of public land to private parties.” Because existing institutions and laws are evaded, ignored and manipulated for private gain, the system of land management is a total failure making it impossible to hold officials in power legally accountable for their corrupt practices.

A variety of methods are used to perpetuate corruption in land in Ethiopia. One “key method” of land corruption involves the illegal allocation of municipal land “to housing cooperatives controlled by developers who then sell off the land informally.” Often “buyers were unaware of the legal status of the land they were buying” and end up in court before judges who are “aligned (in cahoots) with the corrupt officials”.  Another “method” is official falsification of documents. “With limited systems in place to record rights, particularly in urban areas, and limited oversight, officials have plenty of opportunities to falsify documents. It is not uncommon for parcels of land to be allocated to many different parties, sometimes to as many as  different parties, from whom officials and intermediaries collect multiple transaction and  service fees.”  Blatant conflict of interest of board members who oversee the lease award process, the absence of a compliance monitoring process for lease allocations and payments and the absence of land use regulations have served to accelerate the metastasizing corruption in land in Ethiopia.

State ownership of all land in Ethiopia is the fountainhead of land corruption. Wealthy elites and influential groups seize the land of the poor and marginalized through forced, but “legal” evictions and eminent domain actions. Nowhere is this type of land grab corruption more conspicuous than in the regime’s land giveaways to foreign “investors”.  The World Bank report states that “a substantial proportion of expropriated land is transferred to private interests”, but not to smallholders. “The expropriation and relocation of smallholders has been to the advantage of extensive commercial farming, including flower farms, biofuel, and other commodities.” It is also documented that the Ethiopian “government is forcing the Indigenous Peoples of the southwest off their ancestral lands and leasing these lands to foreign companies.” This expropriation has been achieved through a bogus program of “villagization” in which 1.5 million people have been “resettled” from the regions of Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali, and Afar and their ancestral lands handed over to domestic and international “investors”.

As I documented in my March 2011 commentary, “Ethiopia: Country for Sale”, the Indian agribusiness giant Karuturi Global today owns a 1,000 sq. miles, “an area the size of Dorset, England”, of virgin Ethiopian land for “£150 a week (USD$245)” for “50 years”. As Karuturi Project Manager in Ethiopia Karmjeet Sekhon euphorically explained to Guardian reporter John Vidal, “We never saw the land. They gave it to us and we took it. Seriously, we did. We did not even see the land. They offered it. That’s all.” The Karuturi guys would like us to believe they got something for nothing. The regime wheeler-dealers  would like us to believe they gave a 1,000 square miles of virgin land to one of the richest agribusinesses in the world for nothing. Suffice it to say that they may also believe we were born yesterday; but surely, we were not born last night!

Prognosis on corruption in Ethiopia

Corruption in Ethiopia is the principal business of the State. Corruption has metastasized in the Ethiopian body politic  because the political and economic elites that have total control over the country’s land resources benefit enormously. They use tailor-made legislative opportunities to secure,  sell and speculate in land rights. Because the state is the sole owner of land, those who own the state alone have the power to privatize land, expropriate, lease, zone or approve construction plans or negotiate large-scale land giveaways.  Those who control the land in Ethiopia control not only the political and economic process but also the digestive process (stomachs)  of 90 million Ethiopians!

The culture of corruption must be changed before the tangled webs of corruption spun by the political and economic elites in Ethiopia are shattered. The major problem with changing the culture of political corruption is, as Peter Eigen observed, “in many parts of the world, the local people are resigned to the fact that there is corruption. They think there is nothing they can do about it. Therefore they more or less try to accommodate themselves, pay bribes themselves.”

Most Ethiopians are unaware of the regime’s “anti-corruption” efforts and those who are aware view the whole effort with a jaded eye. The simple fact of the matter is that having the “anti-corruption” agency (FEAC) to oversee, monitor, investigate and prosecute the architects and beneficiaries of corruption in Ethiopia is like having  Tweedle Dee monitor, investigate and prosecute Tweedle Dum. To invoke an old Ethiopian saying, “It is difficult to get a conviction when the son is the robber and the father is the judge.”

Effective anti-corruption efforts require an active democratic culture based on the rule of law and a vigilant citizenry empowered to confront and fight corruption in daily life.  Genuine anti-corruption efforts must necessarily begin by empowering ordinary people to fight back, not by creating a make-believe anti-corruption bureaucracy.

There have been some successful experiments in grassroots anti-corruption efforts where ordinary people have been given the tools to fight back corruption. In India, for instance, they have successfully organized local “vigilance commissions” in many towns and brought together the vulnerable and interested groups to probe into corruption. These commissions have put a significant dent in corruption. In Bangalore, “hub for India’s information technology sector”, residents have been involved in rating the quality of all major service providers in the city. The results were used to put pressure on government officials and service providers to become more accountable to citizens. The  Central Vigilance Commission of India also runs Project VIGEYE (Vigilance Eye)  which is “a citizen-centric initiative” in which “citizens join hands with the Central Vigilance Commission in fighting corruption in India.” VIGEYE provides citizens given multiple channels of engagement in the fight against corruption. In parts of Brazil, citizens are empowered to fight corruption through “participatory budgeting.” By including citizens from various backgrounds in the process of budget allocation, Brazil has been able to decrease levels of corruption and clientelism (exchange of goods and services for political support).  

Ethiopia can learn much from Botswana, regarded to be the least corrupt country in Africa. The “Botswana Model” uses the strategy of “name and shame” to educate and accentuate public awareness of corruption. Using the free press as a tool, Botswanans name and shame corrupt officials by publishing their photographs on the front pages with the headline: “Is this man corrupt?” Botswana’s top political leaders are said to maintain high levels of public integrity and teach by example. Peter Eigen credits Botswana’s success to the “Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime in Botswana [which] has processed thousands of [corruption] cases since 1994 and has made great strides against corruption.” In 2012, Botswana ranked an extraordinary 30/174 countries on the Corruption Index. These examples point to the fact that citizen involvement and monitoring are very effective in reducing corruption and increasing public integrity. Creating a bloated, toothless and  self-perpetuating anti-corruption bureaucracy  such as FEAC is mere window dressing for international donors and loaners.

The other remedy for corruption lies in vigorous and well-publicized criminal prosecutions of corrupt officials, asset forfeitures (divestment of corruptly obtained wealth) and imposition of tough prison sentences on convicted corrupt officials. FEAC’s own data show that corruption prosecutions and convictions in Ethiopia are negligible.  

Absent some dramatic treatment for the cancer of corruption in Ethiopia’s land sector, there is no doubt that Ethiopia will be bankrupted in the foreseeable future. This   is  a country whose foreign reserve today could barely cover two months of its import bills, has accumulated over USD$12 billion in foreign debt;  and over the past decade Ethiopia  has lost USD$11.7 billion dollars in illicit financial flows.  Ethiopia’s “beautiful minds” and the opposition elements need to do a better job of addressing the issue of corruption. Passing references to “corruption” that “plagues the infrastructure sector”, “corruption that has never been seen before in the history of” Ethiopia and pleas to “arrest corruption that is rampant in the country” are simply not adequate.

I like to ask naïve questions. When it comes to governance, I ask not why Ethiopia’s rulers have chosen the “China Model” but rather why they have not chosen the “Ghanaian Model?” When it comes to corruption control, I simply ask why Ethiopia’s rulers have chosen not to follow the “Botswana Model”?

At the end of the day, “if Ethiopia is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds,” its  “beautifully minded” scholars, professors, researchers, policy analysts, lawyers  and other members of the learned professions  must renounce their vows of silence and loudly speak truth to black-hearted dictators! Silence may be golden but when we see the gold walking out of the National Bank in broad daylight, we had better  scream, shout and holler  like hell!!!