From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun May 23 2010 - 20:27:22 EDT
Britain 'keeping quiet about Ethiopia repression'
Britain has been accused of allowing hundreds of millions of pounds of its
aid to be used to extend state-led repression in Ethiopia, as the country
voted in national polls widely seen as deeply flawed.
By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Published: 10:00PM BST 23 May 2010
More than £385 million of British money has been channelled to projects in
the country in the last two years, making it the largest recipient of
bilateral aid in Africa.
The majority goes directly to Ethiopian government projects across the
country, despite concerns over how and where it is being spent.
The party of prime minister Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front, is almost certain to win the most seats in
Sunday's vote, after claims of intimidation of opposition leaders and
supporters.
Foreign aid has largely been given with "no questions asked", campaigners
say, because Mr Meles has positioned himself as the West's key ally fighting
the spread of militant Islam in the region.
The country borders Eritrea and Somalia, which Ethiopian troops with Western
backing invaded in 2006 to overthrow the ruling fundamentalist Islamic
Courts Union.
But international donor money to Ethiopia has helped its government to enact
laws restricting international aid agencies' work, to muzzle the press and
regularly to imprison high-profile opponents, campaigners claim.
"Britain is in the lead as one of the largest bilateral donors, and they
bear a large part of the responsibility for driving this very pro-Meles,
sympathetic picture," said Ben Rawlence of Human Rights Watch.
"Britain has adopted a position of head down, carry on, keep spending money
and don't ask any questions.
"It's unsustainable. You can't lock up the leader of the opposition and keep
squeezing the population in the way that Meles has been doing without there
being consequences at some point." British officials are understood to have
launched investigations into claims that aid is being misspent.
Mr Meles' supporters point to policies which have produced double-digit
economic growth over the last seven years, investments in hydropower and
rural electrification, and an end to a long-running border war with Eritrea.
But army crackdowns against opposition protesters after the last election in
2005 left 200 people dead, and tens of thousands of people were imprisoned
in the following months.
Since then, there have been regular complaints that Mr Meles' party is
entrenching its control over all areas of national and local government,
right down to village level.
Those outside of the party find they cannot apply for government jobs, or
are ineligible for food aid or national development funding.
A 2009 law, the Charities and Societies Proclamation, heavily restricted the
work of international aid agencies and local civil society organisations.
Ethiopia is still desperately poor, with 80 per cent of its 85 million
people – most of them in rural areas – living below international poverty
red lines.
"The fact is that we all know there are myriad problems here, but if we
speak out then we get kicked out, and all programmes helping millions of
ordinary Ethiopians come grinding to a halt," said one European aid worker
in the capital, Addis Ababa.
"We have to self-censor, just to get our job done. Do we like it? No, but
there is no room to manoeuvre."
A spokesman from the Department for International Development said: "UK
programmes in Ethiopia include a range of rigorous checks, including regular
financial audits, independent surveys and field visits, to make sure aid is
reaching those who need it," said a spokesman for the Department for
International Development.
"We do not give general budget support to the [central] Ethiopian
Government.
"We take allegations of corruption extremely seriously and have already
commissioned a multi-donor study into accusations of aid misuse, which will
report soon."
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