From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2010 - 08:41:29 EST
Ethiopia's elections - Forget about democracy
The chances of a fair vote in the coming election are fast receding
Mar 26th 2010 | NAIROBI | From The Economist print edition
THE United States, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, is also
the most generous donor to one of the poorest, Ethiopia. America says it
gives $1 billion in aid every year to Africa's second-most-populous country,
which also happens to host the African Union's headquarters.
Yet Barack Obama's administration has barely stirred itself to protest
against recent attempts by Ethiopia to jam programmes in Amharic, the
country's main language, beamed by the Voice of America, a respected
state-funded broadcaster. Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, brazenly
says he will continue to jam the signal for as long as it incites what he
calls hatred. He has compared the Amharic service to the hate speech spewing
from Radio Mille Collines, which helped provoke Rwanda's genocide in 1994.
The State Department called the comment inflammatory but seems loth to make
Mr Zenawi suffer for it.
One reason is that the Pentagon needs Ethiopia and its bare-knuckle
intelligence service to help keep al-Qaeda fighters in neighbouring Somalia
at bay. Many of Washington's aid people argue that, though Mr Zenawi is no
saint, he still offers the best chance of keeping Ethiopia together; even
now, as one of the world's least developed countries, it cannot feed itself.
Human-rights campaigners think the limpness of America and European Union
countries, especially Britain, in the face of Mr Zenawi gives him a free
rein to abuse his own people. This week's report by Human Rights Watch, a
New York-based lobby, claims that, after 20 years in power, Mr Zenawi's
ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front has "total control
of local and district administrations to monitor and intimidate individuals
at a household level." With a general election due on May 23rd, opposition
supporters, says the report, are often castigated as subversives by the
government, denied the right to assembly, and harassed. The press has been
"stifled". Newspapers avoid writing about opposition parties or people the
government says have terrorist links.
Furthermore, says Ben Rawlence, who wrote the report, "Meles is using aid to
build a single-party state." Foreign governments, he says, have colluded in
eroding civil liberties and democracy by letting their aid be manipulated by
Mr Zenawi. Because of his party's stranglehold at village level, its members
can decide on entitlements such as places for children in school and the
distribution of food handouts. Peasants who back the opposition get less.
Farmers complain they are denied fertiliser for the same reason.
The Ethiopian government has denounced the report as outrageous and
ridiculous. Mr Zenawi says that groups such as Human Rights Watch interpret
human rights too narrowly. The only way to guarantee Ethiopia a free future,
he argues, is to keep it stable while it continues to develop. His political
calculations are straightforward. He reckons, for instance, that reporting
by the Voice of America does more harm inside the country than outside
criticism of his censorship.
In any case, Mr Zenawi has signed up for a code of electoral conduct and
invited foreign election observers in. He still has time to win over critics
before the election, for instance by freeing an imprisoned opposition
leader, Birtukan Mideksa, as a goodwill gesture.
Aid-giving governments, for their part, are unlikely to change their minds.
Even after hundreds of protesters were shot dead by the police after the
last elections in 2004, aid to Ethiopia was only repackaged in different
forms, not suspended. Besides, foreign politicians have promised their own
voters that they will dish out large amounts of aid and argue that at least
Ethiopia is less corrupt than many other African countries. Mr Zenawi
understands this well-and exploits it.
Meles holds his nose, gets the cash
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