From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Mar 04 2010 - 07:55:32 EST
To listen to Aregawi Berhe's confession click below
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8548630.stm
Page last updated at 22:14 GMT, Wednesday, 3 March 2010
<http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/email/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8548630.stm>
BBC's Ethiopia weapons report denied
Ethiopian officials and an aid agency have denied a BBC report that millions
of dollars in aid for Ethiopian famine victims in the 1980s went to buy
arms.
Abadi Zemo, a senior member of Ethiopia's ruling coalition, described the
allegations as nonsensical.
The charity Christian Aid said its "investigations do not correspond to the
BBC's version of events".
The BBC report said millions of dollars in Western aid had been siphoned off
by Ethiopian rebels to buy weapons.
It quotes former rebel leaders as saying they had posed as merchants in
meetings with charity workers to get aid money during the 1984-85 famine.
They used the cash to fund attempts to overthrow the government of the time,
the report said.
One rebel leader estimated that $95m (£63m) - from Western governments and
charities, including Band Aid - had been used for military purposes.
An assessment by America's CIA at the time said aid was almost certainly
diverted.
'Rubbish'
Mr Zemo, who was the head of the humanitarian wing of the rebel Tigray
People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the 1980s, dismissed the allegations in
the BBC report, saying they were not new.
He also rejected the claim that current Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi, a leading TPLF member in the 1980s, had ordered that only 5% of the
aid fund should go towards feeding the hungry.
"Do you think the TPLF could tolerate such a thing, do you think could do
such a thing? No, this is rubbish."
ETHIOPIA FAMINE
Meanwhile, Christian Aid, which was involved in delivering aid to Ethiopia
at the time, said in a statement: "There are allegations in the [BBC] story
which are against all of Christian Aid's principles and our initial
investigations do not correspond to the BBC's version of events."
Nick Guttmann, the agency's director of emergency relief operations, said
that the "story has to be put into context".
"We were working in a major conflict, there was a massive famine and people
on all sides were suffering.
"Both the rebels and the government were using innocent civilians to further
their own political ends. But that is not what humanitarian agencies like
ourselves were doing. We were there to help the people in the greatest need
and did so.
"In all emergency relief operations, Christian Aid produces a budget which
states how much food we can afford to buy and how many people this will
reach. This is always followed up with monitoring visits to see the projects
and account for every penny," Mr Guttmann said.
Separately Irish rock star Bob Geldof - who spearheaded the Band Aid
campaign and Live Aid concerts - described the BBC report as rubbish.
Aid workers 'fooled'
The crisis in 1984 prompted a huge Western relief effort to Ethiopia.
Advertisement
Michael Buerk's 1984 report in Ethiopia which shocked the world
Although millions of people were saved by the aid that poured into the
country, evidence suggests not all of the aid went to the most needy.
At the time, the Ethiopian government - backed by the Soviet Union - was
fighting rebellions in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigray.
Much of the countryside was outside of government control, so relief
agencies brought aid in from neighbouring Sudan.
Some was in the form of food, some as cash, to buy grain from Ethiopian
farmers in areas that were still in surplus.
Max Peberdy, an aid worker from Christian Aid, carried nearly $500,000 in
Ethiopian currency across the border in 1984.
He used it to buy grain from merchants and believes that none of the aid was
diverted.
CIA INTELLIGENCE
Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising for relief operations,
as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being
diverted for military purposes
Read the entire document
http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp?pageNumber=2&freqReqRecord=undefined&refinedText=drought&freqSearchText=undefined&txtSearch=Ethiopia+drought&exactPhrase=undefined&allWords=undefined&anyWords=undefined&withoutWords=undefined&documentNumber=undefined&startCreatedMonth=&startCreatedDay=&startCreatedYear=&endCreatedMonth=&endCreatedDay=&endCreatedYear=0&startReleasedMonth=&startReleasedDay=&startReleasedYear=&endReleasedMonth=&endReleasedDay=&endReleasedYear=0&sortOrder=DESC
#
"It's 25 years since this happened, and in the 25 years it's the first time
anybody has claimed such a thing," he says.
He insists that to the best of his knowledge, the food went to feed the
starving.
But the merchant Mr Peberdy dealt with in that transaction claims he was, in
fact, a senior member of the TPLF.
"I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. This was a
trick for the NGOs," said Gebremedhin Araya.
Underneath the sacks of grain he sold, he says, were sacks filled with sand.
He said he had handed over the money he received to TPLF leaders, including
Mr Zenawi.
Mr Gebremedhin's version of events was supported by the TPLF's former
commander, Aregawi Berhe.
Now living in exile in the Netherlands, he said the rebels had put on what
he described as a "drama" to get the money.
"The aid workers were fooled," he said.
He said that some $100m had gone through the hands of the TPLF and
affiliated groups.
Some 95% of it was allocated to buying weapons and building up a hard-line
Marxist political party within the rebel movement.
Both Mr Aregawi and Mr Gebremedhin fell out with the TPLF leadership and
fled the country.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----