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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Oct 26 2010 - 07:49:31 EDT
<http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/29861> Ethiopia: Feed Them and
Bleed Them
Western Donors as Accessories to “Democricide” in Ethiopia
Alemayehu G. Mariam
October 26th, 2010 |
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/29861
The helping hand that feeds Ethiopians is the same hand that helps bleed
Ethiopia. Every year, the U.S., U.K, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan
and other Western countries hand out billions of dollars in “humanitarian”
and “economic” aid to the regime of dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi in
Ethiopia. Every year, these donors turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the
notorious fact that their handouts are used to prop up and fortify a
repressive one-man, one-party totalitarian dictatorship. Today, Western
donors have collectively embraced the proverbial principle to “see no evil,
hear no evil and speak no evil” of what their “aid” money is doing in
Ethiopia.
Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) pried open Western donors’ eyes to see
the havoc their aid money is wreaking in Ethiopia and unplugged their ears
to hear the truth about the evil they are helping to spread throughout that
poor country. In a report entitled, Development Without Freedom [1], HRW
sketched out the architecture of a vast kleptocracy (government of thieves)
whose lifeblood is continuous and massive infusion of foreign aid. The
report represents a devastating indictment of Western donors and their
client regime for crimes that, if committed in the donor countries, would
constitute Class A felonies:
Led by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF),
the government has used donor-supported programs, salaries, and training
opportunities as political weapons to control the population, punish
dissent, and undermine political opponents–both real and perceived. Local
officials deny these people access to seeds and fertilizer, agricultural
land, credit, food aid, and other resources for development. Such
politicization has a direct impact on the livelihoods of people for whom
access to agricultural inputs is a matter of survival. It also contributes
to a broader climate of fear, sending a potent message that basic survival
depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.
HRW charges that Zenawi’s regime has used Western aid to benefit its
supporters by giving them special access to micro-credit (small loans
designed for poor households) loans and benefits under the productive safety
net program (multi-year cash payments to those vulnerable to famine to avoid
disaster from food shortage emergencies). The regime has misused state
educational facilities for political purposes and engaged in systematic
political indoctrination of students, repression of teachers and purging of
individuals who are unwilling to support the ruling party from their jobs.
In sum, after 19 years and “investing” $26 billion in “aid”, the crowning
achievement of Western aid in Ethiopia is the establishment and entrenchment
of a one-man, one-party totalitarian state!
The Western donors refuse to accept any responsibility for the misuse and
abuse of their aid money in Ethiopia; and the conspiracy of silence to cover
up the ugly facts uncovered by HRW continues. A few days after HRW released
its report, a gathering of vulturous poverty pimps known as the Development
Assistance Group (DAG) representing donor states issued a statement denying
the undeniable. “We do not concur with the conclusions of the recent HRW
report regarding widespread, systematic abuse of development aid in
Ethiopia. Our study did not generate any evidence of systematic or
widespread distortion.” [2] DAG co-chair Samuel Nyambi was manifestly
dismissive of HRW’s findings when he arrogantly proclaimed that “development
partners have built into the programmes they support monitoring and
safeguard mechanisms that give a reasonable assurance that resources are
being used for their intended purposes.” In DAG-istan, what HRW found and
reported simply could not happen. HRW made it all up! The report is all lies
and fabrications!
The fact of the matter is that it is in DAG’s self-interest to bury the
truth and keep covering it up even when the truth it is exhumed for public
display. For DAG to acknowledge any part of the HRW evidence is tantamount
to self-incrimination. They could never admit that the things HRW reported
occurred under their watch. As the HRW reports demonstrates, DAG and the
donor countries “have done little to address the problem [aid abuse/misuse]
or tackle their own role in underwriting government repression… even though
they recognize [civil and political rights] to be central to sustainable
socioeconomic development.”
Huddled together in DAG-istan, the poverty pimps have collectively resolved
to continue to do their usual aid business in Ethiopia because “broad
economic progress outweighs individual political freedoms”. In “their
eagerness to show progress in Ethiopia, aid officials are shutting their
eyes to the repression lurking behind the official statistics.” They say
“their programs are working well and that aid was not being ‘distorted.’”
They refuse to carry “out credible, independent investigations into the
problem.” The “donor country legislatures and audit institutions [have
failed] to examine development aid to Ethiopia to ensure that it is not
supporting political repression.” They refuse to “wake up to the fact that
some of their aid is contributing to human rights abuses” in Ethiopia. The
Western donors have ignored calls to “seriously weigh the impact that their
funding has on bolstering repressive structures and practices in Ethiopia.”
They are unwilling to do a “fundamental re-thinking of their strategy.”
The People of Ethiopia v. Western Donors
When I wrote my commentaries “Speaking Truth to Strangers”[3] this past June
and “J’Accuse” last November [4] , I argued that in a perfect world Western
donors in Ethiopia could be prosecuted for being accessories before and
after the fact to the crime of first-degree “democricide”, gross human
rights violations and for aiding and abetting Zenawi’s kleptocracy. The
recent HRW report furnishes a fresh boatload of damning evidence for use in
the criminal conspiracy case of The People of Ethiopia v. Western Donor
Countries to be tried in the court of international public opinion and in
the consciences of all the taxpayers in Western countries shelling out their
hard earned money to support one of the most brutal dictatorships in the
world.
The silent conspiracy between the Western donors and Zenawi’s regime
operates on a couple of simple premises. The Western donors in their
chauvinistic view believe there are two social classes in Ethiopia. One
class consists of the large masses of poor, impoverished, illiterate,
malnourished and expendable masses who will not amount to much. The other
class consists of the tiny class of elites who maintain a lavish life style
for themselves and lord over the masses by manipulating the billions given
to them to strengthen their chokehold on the political structure and
process. The silent conspiracy is sustained by mutuality of interests. The
Western donors want “stability” in Ethiopia, which often means the absence
of internal strife that will not undermine their economic and political
interests in the country. They want regional “stability”, which means having
someone who could be called upon to patrol the neighborhood and kick the
rear ends of some nasty terrorists. For those addicted to aid, it’s all
about more aid, more free money to play with.
As long as the Western donors meet their dual objectives, they do not give a
rat’s behind about what happens to their aid money or what harm it does to
the Ethiopian masses. When confronted with the truth about the misuse and
abuse of aid money as has been documented in the HRW report, the donors will
deny it (“we have built in safeguards, it couldn’t happen), play it down
(“nothing to it”), ignore it (“nor worth commenting”), excuse it (“it’s not
as bad as it seems”), rationalize it (“we’ve got to work with the
government”), and wax legal about it (“there is a sovereignty issue”); and
to fool the people occasionally, they will come out in public, put on a show
of feigned outrage and pontificate about democracy, the rule of law and the
rest of it. After all is said and done, they go right back to business as
usual.
Ethiopia: The Potemkin Village
A Potemkin village is “something that appears elaborate and impressive but
in actual fact lacks substance.” Western aid has reduced Ethiopia to a
Potemkin village. It’s all a façade, a smoke and mirror show complete with
illusions and sleights of hand. DAG is full of it when it counterclaims
against HRW’s findings[5]:
The aid provided by members of the DAG in Ethiopia is transforming the lives
of millions of poor people through basic services such as healthcare,
education and water, and long-term food security. Our programmes are
directly helping Ethiopia to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
In their annual dog and pony show, these poverty pimps have been singing the
same old song for years: “We are saving lives in Ethiopia by the millions.
Imagine how many millions would have perished but for aid; how many children
would have not gone to school. See the clinics and hospitals that aid has
built.” They challenge us to look at how much economic development aid has
brought to Ethiopia: “Behold the shiny glass buildings. See all of the fancy
roads that snake over the hills and valleys. Look at all of the universities
we helped build. Look at the double digit annual economic growth. Aid money
made all that possible.”
What they don’t tell is the fact that many of the shiny buildings have
little running water and many more stand unfinished or vacant. The
universities have few books and educational materials and even fewer
qualified instructional staff. The hospitals and clinics have few doctors
and virtually no medical supplies or equipment to care for 85 million
people. Ethiopia has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world.
Inflation has made it impossible for the vast majority of Ethiopian families
to meet their basic needs. The poverty pimps say nothing about the fact that
famine and hunger stalks a third of the Ethiopia population year around. As
to “double digit” economic growth, it is all made up by Zenawi’s regime.
[7]. So the smoke and mirror aid show goes on and on. The multi-billion
dollar alms industry keeps on humming and squeezing more and more money from
the wallets of hard working men and women in the West.
The fact of the matter is that aid is incapable of creating or sustaining
economic development (its effects under the best of circumstances are
transitory). As Dambissa Moya has argued [6],
In Ethiopia, where aid constitutes more than 90% of the government budget, a
mere 2% of the country’s population has access to mobile phones. (The
African country average is around 30%.) Might it not be preferable for the
government to earn money by selling its mobile phone license, thereby
generating much-needed development income and also providing its citizens
with telephone service that could, in turn, spur economic activity?
To add insult to injury, it is now becoming clearer than ever that aid has
become the principal tool of repression, human rights violations and
suppression of democratic institutions in Ethiopia.
Western Donors on the Horns of a Dilemma in Ethiopia
Based on the HRW report, one can reasonably conclude that U.S. aid policy in
Ethiopia is reeling out of control. U.S. tax dollars given as aid are being
misused by Zenawi for political purposes in violation of U.S. law with the
apparent tacit approval of U.S. authorities. Cumulatively, the U.S., as the
largest aid donor in Ethiopia, has been singularly responsible for the
creation of a repressive Frankenstinian regime over which the U.S. has
little influence or leverage.
Zenawi’s contempt for the Western donors in general is nothing less than the
proverbial “bite of the hand that feeds.” The Economist recently noted, “Mr
Meles’s contempt for what he calls the “neoliberalism” of the West is as
plain as his admiration for ‘generous’ and ‘dependable’ China. Chinese
Communist Party officials were feted at a recent EPRDF conference… The
Europeans and Americans find this galling, since they continue to pay for
many of Ethiopia’s hospitals and schools, as well as handing out free food.”
Zenawi’s contempt is not just for “neoliberalism” (market driven approach to
economic and social policy), but also the very essence of what the U.S. and
the West in general claims to be its fundamental values including the rule
of law, civil and human rights and free democratic processes and
institutions.
After sucking up $26 billion dollars of aid, Zenawi is telling his Western
donors that they are chumps and wimps, and he is going to dump them for the
rising sun of East Asia. The Western donors don’t seem to get it; and they
keep shelling out billions more to keep Zenawi on the dole as he thumbs his
nose at them and sneers at their policies. That is nothing new. After troops
under the direct command and control of Zenawi massacred 200 unarmed
protesters, wounded over 800 more and jailed 30,000 opponents following the
May 2005 elections, Western donors took him to the side and told him, “Be
nice. Don’t do stuff like that. Anyway, here is a couple billion to do what
you will.” In May 2010, Zenawi announced that he had won the elections by
99.6 percent. On September 23, 2010, the U.S. agreed to write him a handout
check for a cool $229.3 million. It is sad to see American taxpayers not
only having their back pockets picked, but also their rear ends kicked.
I believe there is another less visible, but equally catastrophic, damage
caused by the unsupervised Western aid in Ethiopia. The cumulative anecdotal
evidence is compelling and shows that Western aid has helped create in
Ethiopia a culture of poverty captained by poverty pimps and their client
regime. A review of World Bank, IMF, U.N. and US AID studies and reports
over the past 5 years demonstrates the near-total dependence of the
Ethiopian economy on foreign aid. Today, aid is to the Ethiopian economy as
khat (a popular hallucinogenic drug used in the Horn of Africa) is to the
poor addict who is unable to function without that drug. Like khat, aid
gives the Ethiopian economy a burst of short-term energy followed by
economic lethargy and long-term incapacitating addictive dependency. One
cannot help but worry over the fact that the next generation of Ethiopians
could adopt a way of life and a set of attitudes that glorifies
international handouts and panhandling. The millions of Ethiopians
permanently trapped in a culture of intergenerational poverty may have no
choice but to kneel down before the altar of foreign aid and pray to the
gods of free money for their daily existence.
Time to Re-think U.S. Aid Policy in Ethiopia: Need for Congressional and
Other Investigations
It is time to re-think U.S. aid policy in Ethiopia, regardless Zenawi’s
apparent threat that he will turn to China to get money with no strings
attached. The time for U.S. pretension must end. If there is a scintilla of
fact that has any merit at all in the damning evidence assembled by HRW (the
HRW report is fully corroborated), it is time for the U.S. Congress to get
involved and exercise its oversight functions by undertaking a formal
investigation.
There are numerous congressional authorization and appropriations
subcommittees and committees that have jurisdiction over U.S. foreign
assistance programs. The Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations and the
House’s Committee on International Relations have primary jurisdiction over
bilateral development assistance. To the extent funds are misused from U.S.
contributions to multilateral development banks, the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and the House Financial Services Committee have
authority to investigate. The appropriations committees and subcommittees in
both Houses could also look into the HRW’s findings for misspent and
illegally expended funds.
The Office of the Inspector General of the State Department has authority to
investigate instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that may constitute
either criminal wrongdoing or violation of Department regulations. The HRW
report provides ample legal basis to launch an official investigation by the
OIG. The United States Agency for International Development (US AID) is
purportedly committed to rooting out corruption in the use of aid funds.
U.S. AID claims, “Corruption damages international development and poverty
alleviation by limiting economic growth, reducing social cohesion, skewing
public investments, and weakening the rule of law… Democratic governance
rooted in the rule of law contributes to long-term, sustainable economic and
social development.” AID’s feet need to be held to the fire until it sets up
an independent investigation of HRW’s findings. The U.S. Secretary of State
could also order an investigation of the HRW findings.
If the Western donors want to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Ethiopian
people, they must fully embrace HRW’s prudent and sound recommendations to
deal with the problem of aid misuse and abuse.
In light of the government’s human rights violations, direct budget support
to the government should not even be considered, and programs supported by
international funds should be independently monitored. Credible audit
institutions should examine aid to Ethiopia in the context of whether it
contributes to political repression. External donors must also demand that
Ethiopia does more than pay lip service to respecting fundamental human
rights; they must be more vocal about the steps Ethiopia should take to
ensure that its citizens enjoy the rights to which they are entitled under
the country’s constitution and international human rights law.
No Business Like the Panhandling Business
Anyone who says “there is no business like show business,” has not tried the
international alms (begging) business. What could be more fun than sitting
around and waiting for the “aid man” to show up and hand out free money to
use like a drunken sailor. International panhandling is a lucrative
business. Everybody is in it. The panhandlers who live off handouts frolic
in their dreams every night shaking down the aid money tree. The rock stars,
bankers and aid bureaucrats who work 24/7 peddling aid across the globe are
intoxicated by it. Even ivy league professors have gotten into the act; they
have found a new calling as “entrepreneurs of aid” in much the same way as
the procurers of the world’s oldest profession. Giving alms to Ethiopia is
one of the favorite “indulgences” of the Western donors. It is their way of
sanitizing their consciences into believing that they are doing good in
Africa. If they really want to do good, let them teach Ethiopians how to
fish and be self-sufficient. They don’t need to supply a villainous fish
monger never-ending boatloads of fish and give him the power to decide who
to feed and who to bleed.
RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA
[1] http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/10/19/development-without-freedom-0
[2]
http://www.dagethiopia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout
=blog&id=77&Itemid=7
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-speaking-truth-t_b
_610743.html
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/jaccuse_b_349802.html
[5]
http://www.dagethiopia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout
=blog&id=77&Itemid=7
[6] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html
[7]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-the-voodoo-econo_b
_542298.html