... or the Adventures of an American Law Professor in Melesian Higher Eduction.

The first part of this post is largely drawn from Linking Rights and Foreign Aid for Ethiopia: The Case of HR 2003 - The Juris of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law Abigail Salisbury, was until recently, a visiting Professor at the Mekele "University Law Faculty" (MULF herein).

The only thing we know for sure about that fancy institutional title is that it is in fact in Mekele. Consider the following passage and it will be abundantly clear why the term University Law Faculty is in italics and quotation marks in the previous sentence.

... I sat down to read and grade the mid-term essays of the students in my International Human Rights Law classes. Because all of the instructors at Ethiopian universities are made to sign a contract that we will never say anything against the government or ruling party, I had been very careful in wording my assignment.

Manifestly, this is no regular law school - except for those tragic ersatz institutions in places like North Korea and Syria perhaps whose purpose is to provide written documentation for totalitarian whims.

Even then, one must assume that the hereditary dictatorship of the Assads might brutally enforce such rules without actually putting them in writing while the hereditary dictatorship of the Jungs would assume that such submission was assumed by the right of their slaves to breathe air.

Imagine that any academic institution from the local kids' Montessori School to Oxford or anywhere else in the world required such contracts. Outside of North Korea and Syria no one would ever fail to be outraged at such strictures. Outside of Ethiopia it is remarkable that anyone has noticed them at all.

It takes a special kind of government / party, defined by absolute arrogance born of thuggish instincts, massive insecurity, and absolute fear to have academics sign such a contract. MULF is just one tiny brick in the edifice of lies upon which the government and rule of Meles Zenawi is founded.

Ethiopia also has an office of Prime Minister, a Parliament, a Supreme Court, an Election Board, a Commodities Exchange, a Central Statistical Office, etc. etc. - the existence of each of these is just as meaningless as that of MULF. Dictators always know that they have to pretend to be civilized and have civilized institutions - especially dictators who depend on democracies to stay in power.

The result in Ethiopia is not developing or evolving institutions having growing pains but a mass Potemkin Inferno of falsity and suffering. It is however usually more than enough to satisfy most unquestioning ferenji journalists and complicit ferenji bureaucrats who help arrange payments to Meles for the whole thing to go on and on.

The Ethiopian civil contract is not between rulers and ruled it is between ferenjis and Meles Inc. As long as Ethiopia remains poor enough for billions in aid, no one speaks too loudly about who is making her poorer or who gets all the wealth - as long as the natives are beaten and buried out of earshot and downwind from ferenji embassies - the payments can go on forever and will.

As Professor Salisbury notes, a few fine ferenjis have gone and messed with the program. She was invited to

participate in a panel discussion on H.R. 2003, also known as the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007. This American bill, passed in October by the US House of Representatives and now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would withdraw nonessential assistance from Ethiopia until its government fulfills various human rights obligations as set forth by Congress.
...
[s]ome Ethiopians react badly to this, [in our humble opinion, 'Ethiopians' in this context means cadres, the terrorized, or those dreaming of the golden ring of crony status and returned property] go farther, though, stating that the bill amounts to coercion or intimidation, reaching the level of interference and threats against Ethiopia.

While I do not believe that the bill was meant to intimidate, it was clearly intended to persuade the Ethiopian government to change its ways, using economic restrictions as a tool.

The most fascinating part of the discussion is what she noticed about the sense of supposed betrayal present

There is a sense amongst many of the foreign aid workers whom I have met here that Ethiopians have developed a sense of entitlement. It is true that this could just be stressed people complaining about the locals to let off steam.

However, during the H.R. 2003 discussion forum there seemed to be a general assumption that Ethiopia is entitled to American aid. Throughout all the exploration of the various legal issues involved, no one ever doubted that the money belongs to the Ethiopian people.

When I worked up the courage to mention the issue, I was rather strongly told that America has a moral obligation to provide assistance to Ethiopia.

Professor Salisbury notes that even within the US itself that "federal aid often comes with strings attached for the states which accept them." It is amazing that deep into a second generation of proto-or actual totalitarianism that Ethiopian government has so deeply internalized international begging as a substitute for rational social and economic policy.

That one of the restrictions upon spending billions of tax dollars from Americans should be treating human beings in a minimally civilized way is not coercion or intimidation. So let us get back to the good Professor Salisbury's assignment and her students at MULF.

I assumed I would get some rather dry responses, especially given the comments from the H.R. 2003 discussion forum, which all seemed to assert that Ethiopia is doing just fine on the human rights front.

I was absolutely shocked, then, when I started reading my students’ work. Out of the hundred third-year students I teach, probably forty of them had inserted a special section, right after the cover page, warning me of what might happen to them were their paper to leave my hands.

A number of students wrote that they would never give their real opinions to an Ethiopian professor because they fear being turned in to the government and punished. Others begged me to take their work back to America with me so that people would know what was going on.

Of those who wrote such notes, almost all said that I would probably be surprised to find that many of the students had been afraid to express their true feelings at the H.R. 2003 discussion forum because you never know who is listening.

For most Ethiopians, friends of Ethiopia, enemies of Ethiopia in her own government - or for that matter the most casual students of any dictatorship in history - this is all just so blindingly obvious isn't it?

Maybe not so obvious so ... Western reporters routinely go to Ethiopia and ignore everything they see to hang out at the Sheraton Bar or if they are really slumming the Hilton Bar. They write a few paragraphs about the natives' cute supposed superstitions regarding electoral day rings around the sun without noting that no elections actually took place. Optionally they can write about orphaned cheetah cubs in Harar without mentioning the Darfur style ethnic cleansing going on there.

Western foreign policy and aid bureaucrats can always be relied upon to be "shocked, absolutely shocked" far less sincerely than the Professor that there are violations of basic rights going on in Ethiopia. But ... they quickly rationalize them away because their major irritation with the government is that it paraded dirty laundry in front of them forcing them to say something.

Mission one is getting along with the native thugs at all costs. They alone allow access to the natives who are kept conveniently poor for the lords of poverty to swarm around them and be ever so meaningful. The great intellectuals who hold that their personal theories matter more than people are perhaps the worst of the lot.

Nevermind that what made those lords rich to begin with is being forever denied Ethiopians. The same goes for the lords of realpolitik. Mission one is keeping a lid on things and knowing that while Meles "is and S.O.B. - here is our S.O.B." bought and paid for in cold hard cash.

So what is remarkable about Abigail Salisbury is that she saw Ethiopians as people just like her. They weren't career stepping stones and didn't exist to make her feel better about herself. Rather, she had higher expectations of them and for them than anyone else at MULF and Meles Inc.

She had a glimpse of totalitarian horror and chose not to pretend it was something else. Why does she matter? Well, as we have said many times before it is ferenjis that keep Meles in power every bit as much as his fervent willingness to shed blood.

It is perhaps also good to know that ferenjis are even capable of making such moral decisions about the lives of Africans that aren't based on ever new interpretations of Rousseau's Romance with the Primitive.

There is nothing primitive about Ethiopians or any Africans that makes dictatorship somehow OK for them and not others. Salisbury has given Ethiopians just that respect and since ultimately ferenjis are listened to more than Ethiopians what she says is revealing to many more.

The Professor concludes her article supporting the notion that the Ethiopian government should be accountable for how it treats Ethiopians in the eyes of Americans who are paying the bills ...

Instead of being ashamed that our country is disliked for taking unpopular measures, perhaps as Americans we can find pride in that self-same fact, exactly because we do that which we feel must be done to improve lives, despite what others may think of us.

Right on. Even at this stage of her evolving understanding or perhaps it is actual academic reticence - it is understandable that Professor Salisbury still speaks in terms of unpopularity.

It is not Ethiopians who oppose making Meles accountable. It is his revolutionary feudal aristocracy that fears the consequences of their actions. Besides stealing all they can from Ethiopians and from ferenji aid today such a bill in American and possibly European law raises the possibility that they may not enjoy their ill gotten gains in comfortable exile either.

So what happened when Abigail's article was published? She had clearly broken the letter and spirit of her contract to submit to Meles Inc. and thereby to actively participate in the oppression of tens of millions of Ethiopians. It doesn't take a lawyer to see that much does it?

Well she was fired for alleged "incompetence". This article, HR2003 revisited - American law professor fired from Ethiopian university - from the Sub-Saharan Informer tells a bit of the story.

After failing to convince the university’s academic commission that her contract should not be terminated, Professor Salisbury is planning to depart Ethiopia. The firing quickly followed an article she published in “The Jurist,” [the article quoted above]

The amazing thing about this passage from one point of view is that she voluntarily fought to stay at MULF. In this piece, Interview with Prof. Abigail Salisbury - from Ethiomedia we get a whole lot more detail.

Abraha Belai: Would you have written the piece in JURIST if you knew what you know about the consequences?

Abigail Salisbury: That’s a really difficult question. When I wrote the piece, I knew I was taking something of a risk, but I didn’t think anyone in Ethiopia would notice it. I had written for JURIST before, but my work didn’t attract huge interest.

I wrote the article on Ethiopia thinking that it would provide some interesting information and nothing more. I’ve been shocked and a little embarrassed at the attention paid to the piece. I am glad that I wrote what I did, though.

That she had the luxury of making that choice is absolutely based on her status as a ferenji. Had she been Ethiopian she not only would have faced dismissal but other far less tolerable fates as well. Imagine Abigail Salisbury was instead Abebech Sileshi. What would have happened?

- she would have definitely been arrested, tortured, and imprisoned with or without trial (given the Ethiopian legal system what is the difference?) for however long Meles or his feudal appointees wanted

- she could have been executed for any reason that crossed the mind of Meles at the time - any made up association of her fate with terrorism or corruption fighting would have had ferenji embassies smiling encouragingly

- the fact that she did this in Mekele where Ethiopians are by definition supposed to be absolutely subservient and where independent thought is most feared would have compounded her crimes

- all of her claims to savings, possessions, property, reputation, respect or security of any kind would have become moot

- her family and friends who chose to stay decent in any way regarding her or who did not actively take cadre orders to do her harm (even physical) would have been at risk for all or part of the above themselves

Are we exaggerating here? Not a bit. This is how Ethiopia is run today and how the lives of 70 million Ethiopians are defined.

She describes a setting with not only the absence of academic freedom of any kind but also the absence of what is expected of academics at all. What is described is a sort of "Lord of Flies" institution.

I complained to the dean and vice dean many times that the students were just allowed to run wild, and that the students were controlling the instructors. Students commonly visit professors’ offices to beg for money or otherwise harass them.

Because of that environment, there was a fair amount of animosity and there wasn’t much motivation for any real exchange of ideas, whatever the political situation.

As long as no one strays from the central point that Meles / his government / his party are infallible then anything goes. Professors are terrified of their students and vice versa. Accusations of ideological nature are deadly and absent such or given their threat the purpose of a university or indeed a kindergarten is so perverted that it seems to not only betray students but to actively corrupt them.

The first day of class, I tried to get my students to tell me their names and what interest they had in human rights. Even if I specifically asked a student his or her name, the student would just sit there and look away. I knew from that moment there would be no discussions in class.

I desperately tried getting students to react even through simple means, saying things such as, “Who agrees with that idea? Raise your hand if you do.” Nothing would happen. “Who disagrees? Raise your hand.” No hands went up. The students wanted only to be given facts to memorize, and became angry if asked to analyze ideas or provide their own thoughts on something.

I was utterly shocked at the students’ expectations. Clearly they had always been taught that way.

MULF can not be viewed independently of the whole of Meles Inc. Students and instructors may come to such a place with all the sincerity of academics and students from Seoul University to the University of the West Indies. When they get to MULF they find a microcosm of why the Ethiopia of Meles is in a mess and why given current policies it will stay that way.

If there is no honesty in the larger society of any kind, or if honesty is absent in institutions and civil society under threat of death, then what can one expect at MULF? There is nothing surprising here - only that someone told.

The attrition rate for visiting professors seems accordingly high. One left without any pay or reimbursement and Abigail got no severance pay. Hmmm ... we wonder what happened to the money? The same thing that probably happened to all of the millions spent to run or donated for the improvement of MULF.

Along with most of the funds for students it has disappeared into the coffers of Meles Inc. So what happened when the JURIST article above came out?

The day following the publication of my article, I noticed that it could not be accessed online from Ethiopia. That night around 7 p.m. I got a phone call from the dean of the law faculty, who told me to appear at his office the next morning. No explanation was given.

At his office, I spoke to the dean and two other law faculty leaders. They said secret proceedings had been started against me because my students had complained that they weren’t learning anything. I had been telling the dean that the students weren’t learning for months. I had told him that they couldn’t understand me and that they said the reading materials I assigned were “over their heads”.

I had also experienced terrible behavior, such as students yelling at me or walking out of class, telling me what to do, asking for money, following me home, and sexually harassing me during my office hours. I had asked the dean, vice dean, and higher-up professors for advice dozens of times, but had never been given any help.

The dean told me that I would be permitted to write a letter arguing why I should not be fired, but that I would never meet my accusers.
...
The dean mentioned my JURIST article and said that the content was all lies, and that I don’t know how to write. Things would have been different, he told me, if only I knew how to write properly.

Seems to us that the problem was exactly that she knew how to write properly or at least that she exercised a presumed human right to write. The levels of institutional dishonesty and depravity on exhibit there are stunning. Here is a bit more on the consequences of the JURIST article. Ms. Salisbury goes on to say

I think the education given there is very poor.
...
After graduating from MULF with a four-year degree, students can become judges right away.

We only know about this in any detail because one honest ferenji lawyer had enough. Not really, though, Ethiopians always knew. More to the point she was an honest ferenji by her own choice where almost all ferenjis choose the convenient lie that no more can be expected from or for Ethiopians than Meles.

Imagine what the talented students at MULF could accomplish given a decent & honest educational system. Imagine what talented teachers could explore and pass on. Imagine the horror of millions of Ethiopian lives in such a system. Imagine how far Ethiopia has fallen - and there seems no limit to how long and hard she may fall.

For a country that prided itself on only five years of foreign occupation in thousands of years of existence, Ethiopia is now ruled by a rapacious elite hostile to her very existence.

The nooks and crannies of the Melesian corrosion boring and poisoning its way through Ethiopia only seems to matter when a ferenji notices. Otherwise, like a tree falling in the forest - no one hears or notices.

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We will end on this hilarious (diplomatic in a way but we suspect intentionally understated) note. Professor Salisbury says

I should mention that teaching this human rights class can be a very touchy thing, even though the subject appears to be strongly supported by the university, which is of course overseen by the Ministry of Education in Addis Ababa.

While such a subject would be almost a luxury elective or niche seminar in America, it is a part of the Ethiopian core curriculum and the administrators consider it one of the most important topics today, even having established a Human Rights Centre for community advocacy and informative purposes.

Good one Abigail!

... as time goes by ... (image with apologies to Dooley Wilson)

inflation & economic lies redux ... 'elections' again ... the grand alliance for now

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Inflation happens in an economy when there is too much money chasing available goods or when there are too few goods for money to be spent on. That is the rather fundamental economics of supply, demand, and pricing.

There are variations on the theme of course. Meles Inc. has managed to engineer the laws of a country into a perversion of the laws of economics onto an eternal accelerating crisis. In Ethiopia today there is a whole lot of money in just a very few hands.

Those few hands also manage and profit from all goods - most of which, by design, are scarce. Ethiopia's government has created a situation where inflation can occur because supply or demand pressures have become equal partners.

The most important 'good' in the economy, grain, is not available as needed. Agricultural policy is based upon the inseparable political and profit motives that mandate government ownership of all land.

That means that the revolutionary feudal aristocracy which defines the ruling party, controls the government, and runs businesses at every level - owns the land, what it manages to produce, and the people on it. They also print money at will.

A full seventeen years into Meles's acclaimed

-poverty reduction programs,
-brilliantly reformed market economy,
-rear door G-8 invitations,
-African Renaissance / Commission for Africa plaudits,
-proclamations of stunning double digit growth rates,
-loving applause from Western intellectuals,
-usually sheepish almost 'useful idiotish' foreign press coverage,
-unaccountable billions of dollars / euros from 'development partners',
-and brave liberation from Mengistu

What has really changed beyond that Meles usually allows ferenjis to feed the folks he is starving after he gets his cut while Mengistu sometimes did not let ferenjis feed the folks he was starving whether or not he got a cut. Today,

-the per capita GNP is lower than that of Somalia
-the government monopolies dominate the economy as in Mengistu's day
-party owned / crony owned businesses / endowments etc. (the same thing as govt really) dominate the remainder
-the rate of foreign investment is among the lowest in the world - indeed it is far exceeded by the amount that the revolutionary feudal aristocracy sends abroad to foreign numbered accounts and foreign investments
-Ethiopia is one of the very poorest nations
-no surprise, Ethiopia's government is on of the most corrupt on earth
-and as naturally follows, Ethiopia's government has one of the most vile human rights records in the world

Meles's government not only lies habitually it would appear that they don't know how not to lie. Here is the setting of this tale

Ethiopia's annual inflation rate increased to 29.6 percent in March, the highest in over a decade, as rising food costs continued to push up consumer prices.

Inflation expanded from 22.9 percent in February, the Addis Ababa-based Central Statistical Agency said in a report today. Food prices climbed 39.4 percent on an annual basis, from 30.2 percent in February, according to the report.

First of all the central statistics office is nought but a fount of lies if you didn't get our point yet. Aren't they the same people who have been claiming economic growth sufficient to propel Ethiopia into the middle income rank of countries in a generation?

So one can safely conclude that inflation is far worse than is being admitted here - unless there is a percentage in exaggeration. Remember, that aside from a few keen & unpublicized IMF and World Bank reports trying to peer into a non-transparent system - there are no numbers available about Ethiopia but those the government makes up.

Here is a glimpse of reality via Dagmawi on one point in "Property rights in a very poor country : tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia". The source is the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS 4363, November 2007. (pdf file)

This paper provides evidence from one of the poorest countries of the world that the property rights matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears far off the agenda.

Land rental and leasing have been made legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study investigates whether transfer rights and tenure insecurity affect household investment decisions, focusing on trees and shrubs.

The panel data estimates suggest that limited perceived transfer rights, and the threat of expropriation, negatively affect long-term investment in Ethiopian agriculture, contributing to the low returns from land and perpetuating low growth and poverty.

Urban and rural life has become so progressively expensive and difficult that living standards have fallen drastically from what some might have imagined to be floor level. So what did Meles have to say about inflation at first?

He blamed the whole thing on bad business people and other malicious economic criminal who were manipulating prices to their own benefit alone. This type of blame is a staple of dictators of all places and all times. Meles must have a Dictator's Almanac on his nightstand where he gets this kind of fluff.

Here is what he had to say

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has introduced tough measures to stabilize soaring prices, including a crackdown on what he called "economic criminals," but he says the African nation's economy is essentially sound.

...

Prime Minister Meles Tuesday declared war on what he referred to as greedy business people, blaming them for sharp price increases that boosted Ethiopia's inflation rate to 20 percent. In a speech to parliament, he lashed out at what he called "fraudsters" who recently caused a five to 10-fold increase in the price of salt in a single day.

Mr. Meles announced establishment of a task force to prosecute businesses engaging in what he called "persistent illegal exploitative activities."

"Such greedy and illegal business persons will only respond when each has been identified and punished," he said. "As a result, the government has decided to completely change its approach toward those committing economic crimes. A task force comprising members of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the federal police and the National Security and Intelligence service has been set up to permanently monitor illicit activities and take prompt legal measures as necessary."

In other words "round up the usual suspects." What this all means is that someone dared to cheat Meles out of his cut or someone has to be blamed until the ferenji reporters discover another halo around the sun and forget about the whole business.

(ethiopundit is proud to have gotten the PM [a loyal reader] out of the practice of using silly phrases such as 'rent seekers' and 'revolutionary democracy' [in English that is - things remain the same in Amharic etc.] but that is what he meant to talk about though.)

Strangely, he did not mention how he was the biggest rent seeker / practicer of economic greed in Ethiopian history, or how any such hoarders or malicious economic actors actually worked for him directly or gave him a big cut of their profits. He did not mention how the Ethiopian economy serves as his own private bank account.

Meles did not mention how entrepreneurship and agricultural productivity are discouraged by the use of hunger and land as weapons to intimidate or bribe. How improving one's land was punished by redistribution on political / personal / bribery grounds.

He did not mention how every aspect of the economy and the fabled commodities exchange is under his personal control. That is from the blood, sweat, and tears of farmers onto truckers, grain boards, local commissars / revolutionary committees, and the 'global economy wired' shiny new offices of the commodities exchange in Addis paid for and taken seriously only by ferenjis.

He did not mention how an increasingly amount of an already large percentage of food is donated. Depending on the news cycle he claims bumper harvests when convenient and is pretend angry about slow Western response to crises when that is convenient. His own foreign investment schedule in numbered Swiss accounts or shell game US real estate is the determining factor here - not the welfare of Ethiopians.

Think that point is a bit harsh? Back in the 80s when the EPLF blockaded shipments of food to Tigray for a while - Meles made sure that anyone who spoke an unkind word about the EPLF in Tigray would be purged and shot. Today after so many lived through the engineered hunger of Mengistu's times, Western aid agencies work in the Ogaden under the condition that they not tell the truth about government atrocities.

Indeed, Trotsky, one of Meles's ideological and practical mentors said that "where the state is the sole landlord - opposition means death by slow starvation." This is all a matter of policy. In Soviet Russia the few percentages of land farmed privately were several orders of magnitude more productive than any official forms of agriculture combined.

Wherever state ownership is the norm - poverty and oppression follow necessarily. Compounded with that the challenge of a fake market economy of revolutionary feudal aristocracy owned businesses who also control the government and its monopolies - Ethiopians don't stand a chance.

Meles prints money just as he feels like and spends it just as he feels. Much of the national budget is in the form of direct grants from the West and given the anemia of the rest of the economy the success of his national kleptocracy is based on forced monopolies and going at ferenji aid with two hands and an open mouth. His web of businesses and corruption suck up most of the available money into a very few hands.

Meles did not mention how agricultural production is always falling and the distorting effect of reliance on food aid. Food aid is a bounty of harvests for Meles. There are literally billions in contracts for office construction, shipping, salaries (no-show ones and kickbacks), fees, taxes, etc to siphon off before the slightest amount that doesn't get misdirected into the domestic grain market actually reaches the starving.

So for two decades Meles has been discouraging agricultural production and he has encouraged dependence on economy distorting foreign aid. Note that there is no inherent reason that Ethiopians should starve or that Ethiopian land is not productive.

Policies are what matter. The major factor in a population starving beyond what they are allowed to do for themselves is how politically powerless they are. This all fits the preference of Meles for relying on ferenji partners rather than the Ethiopian people in a civil contract of any form.

The ferenjis will use him as convenient and even will pay him extra not to cause harm to his people within sight of embassies or reporters. Ethiopians of every stripe just want him gone. Given his objective of staying in power for as long as possible and profiting from it as long as possible - Meles is making a rational decision here. He is looking out for #1.

Again via Dagmawi this report is instructive and bears repeating in detail: Urban Labour Markets in Ethiopia: Challenges and Prospects World Bank, March 2007.

The performance of urban labour markets in Ethiopia has been disappointing. ... Jobs growth has been slow and way below what is needed to productively employ urban residents looking for work; unemployment is thus high. Even for those who have income earning opportunities, these are typically in the informal sector and very low paid.

...

Many new leases(particularly outside Addis Ababa), are allotted at administrative prices that are several times lower than auction prices for similar land. There is no system of evaluating these indirect land-related subsidies obtained by receivers of these 'administrative-price' leases. Finally, the best lands are often allocated for negotiations rather than being placed on auction (e.g. around Lake Tana in Bahir Dar). Thus, resulting prices of land within the government land allocation system are substantially distorted and can be prone to corruption.

...

While ex-factory prices are kept below market prices, there is a thriving secondary market in cement that is fuelled by those who have the ability to purchase cement at the ex-factory price

...

In cement, for many years a party-owned firm and a State-Owned-Enterprise have been the only domestic suppliers, each enjoying rapid increases in demand. In the financial sector, a bank affiliated with an endowment currently has the highest return of equity among private banks, and the microfinance institution owned by an endowment has grown to one of the largest in Africa

...

and a comparison to the 'Tiger' economies (Taiwan and the ruling KMT in this case) of Asia that Meles Inc. likes to pretend it is on the same planet with

A key difference is that the KMT has released detailed information on its business holdings, while Ethiopia's endowments are fully opaque

Examples of corruption in the banking system are legion and natural. After all Meles runs them and he takes loans from them using managers beholden to him and businesses he profits from in a simple shell game that he wins every time.

Given all of this the result that the Ethiopian economy is doing very poorly and suffering from growing levels of inflation is no surprise. The most important economic factor - grain is in short supply and the most harmful, factor corruption is present in abundance.

The food aid that substitutes for production is subject to manipulation and corruption at unheard of levels and depending on political factors may never reach those for whom it is intended anyway. Meles knows there are too many other ways to make money from it.

The money thus generated and that from the entire crooked economy ends up in a very few hands. The modern economy actually touches very few people in cities only. All of that money is sufficient to distort the urban economy with great inflationary pressure because unless it is shipped out it has no place to go.

Ethiopia has no market economy that can handle any crisis with either rational management decisions or the independent decisions of millions of producers and consumers. Economic policy is at the whim of one man and the corrupt revolutionary feudal aristocracy he commands.

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One new factor in all of this is the global food crisis. Drought is blamed on the supply in Australia which has ceased important rice exports to Asia. Increased consumption in China and India is also blamed on the demand side.

In our opinion, the global food crisis has nothing to do with what is going on in Ethiopia.

Sure, Meles came across the global excuse as an excuse a week or so after blaming 'rent seekers' etc. and wished he had thought of it beforehand. After that the link was made to the world crisis with lip smacking delight.

This leaves out the reality that inflation in Ethiopia was high long before this and was high back in the 90s as well. In addition, it leaves out the reality that Ethiopia is effectively insulated from the global food economy.

Ethiopians produce a meager amount of food to begin with because they are not allowed to produce more. The remainder is imported as aid from foreign governments. Whatever residual deficit there is (after every one in higher up in the food chain than the 70 million regular Ethiopians have taken their cut) just doesn't matter and is chalked up as statistical ruined lives from starvation and malnutrition.

One can safely assume that much of the needed domestic grain is exported and that much of the food grain is exported by Meles Inc. for profit regardless of need anywhere. After all we are talking about the Meles Inc. here.

Of course, this may all be far reaching and far seeing opportunism on the part of Meles to profit from the coming food crisis by sending food out of Ethiopia. Hey, you think he got that MBA just to run Mega? Meles does make Gordon Gekko seem like Mother Theresa doesn't he? That makes about as much sense as blaming traders who may have just paid him less than his normal share.

Regardless, the price of grain in Bombay or Cairo doesn't have much to do with that in Addis because the whole Ethiopian food economy is really a perverse isolated example of everything to do wrong in the world of economics.

So no matter what Meles and his gang have to say about linking global food issues to Ethiopia - believe none of it. Why not wonder why things were already so bad in Ethiopia for years when food was plentiful everywhere else.

You should also note in the coming weeks that even as prices rise worldwide and turmoil results in some places that most governments will actually look after their people - unlike Meles Inc.

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The mess that the Ethiopian economy is in knocks out one leg of justifications for Meles Inc. rule - namely that they are 'keeping the trains running on time'. They are doing no such thing and never have. Indeed, given the current setup the trains never will run on time. Everything regarding the personal economic portfolio of Meles (especially abroad) will, however, proceed on schedule.

The next leg of the Melesian justification tripod is his utility to the West. Secondarily this is a matter of not hurting his people too much and too visibly for Western tastes. Primarily, it has more too do with low expectations for Ethiopians in general and Somalis in particular. No matter how evident it is that Western leaders find shaking the hand of Meles distasteful and actually repulsive - they still pay for his place in power.

Apart from nonsense about halos around the sun (how does that fit in with a revolutionary democratic world view anyway?) absolutely no one on the planet is taking the latest round of elections seriously. The last and final leg of justification is Meles himself and his personal commitment to intimidate, kill, and harm as many Ethiopians as possible wherever they may be found.

Ultimately, this is what it is all about.

Meles has been lying and breaking fundamental rules of humanity (not to mention economics) for over three and a half decades now. The roll call of victims extends from thousands in his own revolutionary party and hundreds of thousands of innocents in rural Tigray starting in the 70s all the way to the peaceful opposition and tens of millions everywhere in Ethiopia today.

But ... the fundamental rules still apply as time goes by. Whatever his personal issues and motivations may be - he is continuing to drive Ethiopia on an ever steeper road to hell ... and that is clear to every honest observer.

Wonder if things can ever get worse in Ethiopa? Clearly they can and Meles will always be ready with a lie, however absurd it may be along with a willingness to kill to ensure he will be around until the very last moment.

When Meles speaks of "persistent illegal exploitative activities" he is, of course, innocent by definition - because he writes the laws as he pleases and he enforces them as he pleases.

He knows exactly what he is doing and so do the development partners who pay him.

The first instinct of the U.S. State Department when presented with the Kenyan government's election chicanery was familiar to Ethiopians - Foggy Bottom (somehow, strangely, that term seems more than just geographic, right?) decided to go with 'our s.o.b.' and to congratulate the 'victors' already in place.

Then something funny happened on the way to the Kibaki coronation.

Even amidst tribal / ethnic bloodletting (much planned) that fed the "go with us or have chaos in East Africa" rap from the Kenyan Presidential Palace - the U.S. stood firm and along with the U.N., the E.U. (and no doubt gentle warnings from the World Bank & IMF) insisted that the will of the Kenyan people be respected to some degree at least.

Eventually - ferenji pressure forced a political power sharing deal in Nairobi that is not perfect but that will serve the Kenyan people far better than ferenji sponsored and financed dictatorship. You know, we should be careful using the word 'dictatorship' in this context shouldn't we?

The Kenyan elite, however corrupt it is and however it plays reflexively nasty tribal / ethnic games is not in the same category of dictatorship as Meles Inc. is. Sorry to put it this way - but the Kenyan political system, for all of its faults, is inherently more civilized than that in Ethiopia.

Dealing with an opposition that never uttered an tribal insult and that never traded in ethnic hatred - Meles Inc. could not stop shouting about the Rwandan genocide and how that is what the opposition had in plan. No one believed it of course just as no one in Ethiopia believes anything that Meles has to say.

The opposition won among every region, tribe, religion, and ethnicity where election observers were present. Everywhere. Where no observers were present (most of the country) - the vote was not counted and still not released. Meles knew he was despised but simply had no idea how much in enough time to properly fake even a fake election.

More people were killed in tribal / ethnic fighting in Kenya than have ever been killed in Ethiopia. That is unless you count the Ethiopian government - which has a body count that machete wielding toughs could not dream of. The tribal / ethnic killers in Ethiopia were not only sponsored by the government - they are the government.

The only group the minions of Meles Inc. believe in or are loyal to is a revolutionary feudal aristocracy that is not defined by anything but greed and the willingness to be brutal. They feel amazingly entitled to billions in aid from ferenji taxpayers and essentially hold their own people and the stability of the Horn of Africa hostage for that purpose.

Meles has never felt an urgent threat to the gravy train the way Kibaki did. Kibaki made kind of nice in the end because he had no choice. The social contract in Kenya apparently has some place for actual Kenyans.

Meles has always had a choice because the social contract in Ethiopia is between ferenjis and Meles himself. Ethiopians just don't matter. There is always a convenient excuse for why Ethiopian human rights and governmental decency can wait.

We wonder sometimes if there is something different about Ethiopian DNA and that of the rest of the world. During the 1970s and 1980s Ethiopians under the control of Mengistu's Soviet sponsored Dergue and Meles's EPLF sponsored TPLF all had far less human rights and dignity than South African blacks under Apartheid.

We are delighted that South African blacks are free today. We are delighted that in their hour of need the world, or at least much of it, would have no more of such a system.

How many people out there know that Ethiopia's constitution, laws, and government are today based upon tribal / ethnic bantustans? That tribal / ethnic / regional / religious divide and rule is at the heart of all political discourse and participation in civil society?

That Ethiopia has one of the most corrupt & brutal governments on earth? No worries - apparently the Boers were expected to now better but since Ethiopia's tormentors look just like all other Ethiopians - it all seems to be just O.K.

After all - this is Africa and Africans we are talking about - and most particularly Ethiopians. Kenyans? Well maybe Kenyans have some rights but definitely not Ethiopians.

Today, the world gets worked up about Darfur and Mugabe - Chad and Kibaki and the US is proud to be on the right side of history and human rights there. But ... Ethiopian suffering is like a tree falling in the forest ... screams and death beyond the diplomatic compounds of Addis simply are not an issue and are sounds that are embarrassing and actively avoided.

This remains so no matter how many opposition figures not known to ferenji diplomats are dead, tortured, or in jail. This remains so no matter how many hundreds of thousands of other faceless and nameless Ethiopians are in mass graves or prison camps.

So ferenjis do matter.

They keep Africa's dictators in business and when ferenjis act like they have had enough things seem to happen and thugs seem to discover a warm and fuzzy side. Ferenjis pay the bills for Kibaki and Meles. It is just that when it comes to Meles absolutely no return is expected on the investment except that he not make things worse than usual.

And then there is the Vicki Huddleston Meles as Great Black Hope vision

By singling out Ethiopia for public embarrassment, the bill puts Congress unwittingly on the side of Islamic jihadists and insurgents.

Nonsense. The embarrassment will be for Meles Inc. not Ethiopia - and Vicki knows it. Vicki is equating the interests of Meles with those of Ethiopia when they clearly are not the same thing.

Her plea not to turn on Ethiopia is a plea to stick with Meles personally and should be understood just so. What should we expect to see next? Meles eating apple pie with the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze? Even better would be Meles defending Western Civilization against hordes of orcs a la Lord of the Rings.

Well Vicki ... to 70 million or so Ethiopians - Meles is Sauron himself and you keep him and his orc army going. For real - just say that it is in the interests of the USA as interpreted by policy makers who can't see past next weekend that Meles is the devil you know and you would rather have him around no matter what happens to all those Ethis.

How about these lines from Vicki's opus?

Sadly, Congress is poised to fuel the march toward war by passing a bill that threatens to cut off technical assistance to Ethiopia, one of our closest allies, if it does not, among other things, release political prisoners, ensure that the judiciary operates independently and permit the news media to operate freely. Ethiopia has already freed opposition leaders, reformed parliamentary rules to give opposition parties greater legislative responsibility and approved a new media law that meets international standards.

Each of these statements is so demonstrably false or at the very best put forth with such an absolutely sincere disingenuous spin that even the least knowledgeable reader must amazed at the sheer daring of it all.

The Human Rights Bill is in Senate Hearings now after unanimously getting through the House. Senator Inhofe, perfectly placed with 1) Ethiopian relatives 2) no Ethiopian-American constituents and most of all 3) with a secure seat not beholden to the press or anyone else, is carrying the water for the administration on this one.

Along with an army of lobbyists and lawyers bought and paid for with siphoned aid money, Meles Inc. is going to fight hard to 'keep Ethiopia from embarrassment' in Vicki's words. What this really means is that Meles is terrified that his money may no longer be secure in American real estate and stocks if his inhumane policies finally catch up with him.

Senator Russ Feingold seems to be having none of this

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the political situation in Ethiopia. The US-Ethiopian partnership is an incredibly important one – perhaps one of the more significant on the continent given not only our longstanding history but also the increasingly strategic nature of our cooperation in recent years.

Ethiopia sits on the Horn of Africa – perhaps one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world, with Somalia a failed state and likely safe haven for terrorists, Eritrea an inaccessible authoritarian regime that exacerbates conflicts throughout the region, Sudan a genocidal regime, and now Kenya descending into crisis.

By contrast, Ethiopia seems relatively stable with its growing economy and robust poverty reduction programs.

Great right, but see the problem outlined in bold? Senator Feingold like Representatives Payne & Smith and so many others is a friend of Ethiopia and of human rights ... but he has taken the spin about the economy and poverty reduction a bit too far or perhaps he is just trying to soften the blow.

This sounds to us, as we have said before, like a 'he made the trains run on time' justification for dictatorship.

The truth of the matter is that neither Mussolini not Meles made the trains run on time anyway. Remember that all economic statistics about Ethiopia come from the Ethiopian government itself. Like pronouncements on laws, parliament, courts, elections, commodity exchanges or anything else - it is all a tissue of lies supported by complicit ignorance.

Senator Feingold is a man we admire and decidedly not in that category but those who should be providing he world with the truth certainly are. International and national aid bureaucracies simply have no interest in rocking the boat by not going along with the local dictator. Indeed, his interests in having no accountability for ever increasing amounts of aid fit the interests of the aid bureaucracies perfectly.

Most journalists are too lazy to check statements such as the one a year or so ago that a fake 7% rate of economic growth would give Ethiopia the lifestyle of middle income countries in twenty years. Meles actually lets agencies and reporters into places such as the Ethipian Darfur in the Ogaden if they promise to remain silent on anything he wants.

It seems to work too.

Now the economic growth lie is now wrapped around a fake 10% or more economic growth rate that depends on the statistics of one of the most lying and corrupt governments in the world. A number of supposedly critical and analytical PDF articles have appeared in the last months on the subject.

They are well written in a glib occasionally dazzling style. They are critical of the government for uneven economic growth but curiously the reader has to accept the notion that massive 10%+ economic growth is occurring to begin with.

The slickness of the effort is what is really curious and goes along with the general theme of 'the trains are running on time'. They aren't and Ethiopia's poverty is deepening. Last November The Economist had this to say

The government claims that the economy has been growing at an impressive 10% a year since 2003-04, but the real figure is probably more like 5-6%, which is little more than the average for sub-Saharan Africa. And even that modestly improved rate, with a small building boom in Addis Ababa, for instance, has led to the overheating of the economy, with inflation moving up to 19% earlier this year before the government took remedial action.

The reasons for this economic crawl are not hard to find. Beyond the government-directed state, funded substantially by foreign aid, there is—almost uniquely in Africa—virtually no private-sector business at all. The IMF estimates that in 2005-06 the share of private investment in the country was just 11%, nearly unchanged since Mr Zenawi took over in the early 1990s. That is partly a reflection of the fact that, despite some privatisation since the centralised Marxist days of the Derg, large areas of the economy remain government monopolies, closed off to private business.

We don't buy the 5% figure either and given population growth and inflation it is far too less to keep pace. The building boom in Addis is based upon remittances from countries with economic and political freedom. It is also based on the corruption that siphons billions in aid to party businesses, cronies, and government monopolies.

Most importantly - as the article says there is no private economy beyond that owned by Meles Inc. From peasant plots in a country with no private property rights to grain boards to banks to regulatory agencies to aid recipients at every level to the tourist business to foreign investments (in the US and Europe that is) Meles and his aristocracy control the whole Ethiopian economy as though it was their own private piggy bank.

No country has ever grown and no country every will under those circumstances. And what is poverty reduction anyway. Isn't economic growth the ultimate form of poverty reduction? Letting a small fraction of ferenji aid actually build some things to and feed people to prime the aid pump instead of just stealing all of it is not a poverty reduction program.

Given the corrupt outflows of money from Meles Inc. into foreign accounts and investments Ethiopia actually has a negative (we prefer the term subterranean) rate of foreign direct investment.

A older Kenyan friend who lived in Ethiopia on and off from the 1970s always commented that however corrupt Kenya was at least somethings got done sometimes - and most importantly folks just didn't get killed right and left.

The Ethiopia he knew as a young man in the early 70s was little different from Kenya economically but by the 80s the difference was obvious and by this millennium absolutely manifest. Politically, he was saddened that "Ethiopians were always afraid of their government while we were usually just disgusted with ours".

Why? Let us face it - little things matter. However bad the Kenyan government it did in reality and was expected in reality by others to treat Kenyans with some measure of decency. For almost 33 now there have been no such expectations about Ethiopian government.

The standards have been set so low that the notion that at least Ethiopians aren't eating each other seems to be enough to have the whole world ignoring the crimes of Meles or helping him along because no better can be expected.

This blog is quite determined on the matter of the War Against Terror. Fighting it, however, should not mean that the likes of Meles Zenawi thinks that it is open season on Ethiopians. Senator Feingold continued

Indeed, one look at the deteriorating situation on the Horn of Africa and it is clear just how essential our relationship with Ethiopia really is. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s approach to strengthening and building bilateral ties with Ethiopia has been short-sighted and narrow. As in other parts of the world, the Administration’s counter-terrorism agenda dominates the relationship, while poor governance and human rights concerns get a pass.

The Senior State Department Official said to Human Rights Watch once with stunning honesty that

Ethiopia's human rights record is 'not a factor' in the bilateral relationship.

Whatever happened to the President's

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

What happened on the way to the Kibaki coronation? Ferenji enablers decided to make him accept the essential humanity of Kenyans. The absurdity is not just a ferenji matter. Get this - election observers from the Ethiopian government are supposed to supervise the elections in Zimbabwe.

It would all be funny if it wasn't.

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ethiopundit's partial catalog of the economic lies and corruption of meles ... or why probably anything you here about economic growth is a lie

Ethiopians are not poor even by the standards of Biblical suffering and they are not oppressed even by the standards of familiar African dictatorship by accident or fate. It is all about government and policies that many of the posts below investigate in depth.

The authors of these policies are the ones that aid donors and other development partners embraced and continue to value after a decade and a half of economic and social de-evolution masked by tens of billions of aid to one of the most corrupt, poorly governing and brutal governments on earth.

The height of absurdity - a commodity exchange: Field Of Screams

Some of the intellectual justifications for Meles Inc. rule:
Hypnotize, Intellectuals and Their Discontents, Jeffersonian Economics.

Mau-Mauing Ferenjis: Scavengers of the Horn, Leveraging Poverty.

The 7% Maskirovka details how claims of economic growth are lies carried out with the complicity of willingly gullible partners in the international media and aid organizations. The 7% Solution looks into the particular origins of the claims to 7% growth - that is what is supposed to happen to get MDG money so by pretending it is not needed the flow of money is assured.

Economic Absurdities details how all accounts of Ethiopia's economic performance must not be considered at face value and that the economy is in fact a stagnant mess utterly dependent of foreign aid and remittances.

lies, damn lies & statistics re-examines false claims of high Foreign Direct Investment that are part of the ongoing and defining propaganda campaign that the Ethiopian government runs instead of governing the country.

The Tragedy of the Commons discusses how common or far worse government ownership of land has always been a plan for disaster.

Cargo Cult Economics Pretense of freedom and a free market is alive and well in Ethiopia with absolutely no attention given to the institutions and accountability necessary for free and prosperous nations. The whole edifice of the massive money transfer to Swiss banks (aka MDGs) is like the Pacific Cargo Cults based on the idea that prosperity comes from rituals.

Cargo Cult Economics 2 - All About the Benjamins? Development is about more than cash - it is about institutions. In fact any money in the absence of reason and rationality will hurt more than help by breeding corruption and the destruction of needed institutions.

Cargo Cult Economics 3 - Structural Corruption Corrupt and unaccountable party and government owned businesses and monopoly service providers in an effectively single party state do not provide a setting where you can expect freedom and prosperity or accountability.

Cargo Cult Economics 4 - Short Term Memory Recent African history from the era of independence in the late 50s and 60s on is full of the serial discovery of visionary rennaissance leaders that the world has fallen in love but whose policies have only bought tragedy for their people.

Cargo Cult Economics 5 - Cheerleaders and Cargo Cult Economics 6 - Sachs & Violence Intellectuals and academics who give cover and encouragement to third world despots and their bound to fail economic schemes imagine that it is OK for some to live under different rules than they would expect for themselves. That is an example of the vile sentiment of actual romance and purpose that is found by some in other people's suffering.

The World Is Yours Is an introduction to anothers series from numerous sources detailing the essentially corrupt system that Ethiopians suffer under. A system that simultaneously wastes billions in aid dollars and euros while impoverishing millions:. Basically, the Ethiopian government at present is difficult to distinguish from an organized crime network. The World Is Yours II - The Syndicate, The World Is Yours III - The Commission, The World Is Yours IV - "An Offer They Can't Refuse", The World Is Yours V - Capo di tutti Capi, The World Is Yours VI - Our Thing

'Zenawinomics' and the Aztec gods, let the ferenjis feed 'em again and let the ferenjis feed 'em take a look at the game of 'bumper crops' and 'looming famine' that is played out regularly with the result that taking care of Ethiopians or even allowing them to take care of themselves has been abandoned in preference for letting aid donors take care of it all.

The Birth of Plenty, Do the Right Thing and Luck and the Idea Trap show exactly how other nations have escaped destitution and tyranny, why Ethiopia as currently governed never will and how such horrible decisions are purposefully made by governments.

On Borrowed Time focuses on the agricultural economy and how all present trends given current policies point downwards. Malthus, Hobbes and the Red Queen looks to the future and further finds that without changes Ethiopia is heading for a horrible appointment with destiny so that a few can remain powerful and rich.

The Politburo Knows Best series looked at the prospects for liberal democracy and found them poor indeed. Almost all of the same factors predict prosperity as well and they have all been abandoned in favor of eternal power for a few. The following provide clues to the ideological undperpinnings of Ethiopia's current suffering and the policies that define it. Basically, the controls provided for below explain why the trade-off was made for eternal beggar status vs actual development.

Politburo Knows Best III - Revolutionary Democracy The national guiding ideology is still Marxist-Leninist-Maoism - so you can assume there aren't great prospects for freedom and prosperity. Since about the time this seminal essay ;-) was posted the government has not mentioned Revolutionary Democracy aloud again but it still defines their world view exactly.

Politburo Knows Best IV - Revolutionary Feudalism There are no rights to own private property whose protection is essential to all prosperity and personal & political rights worldwide throughout any period of history.

Politburo Knows Best V - The Wretched of the Earth Ethiopia's system of tribal divide and rule 'bantustans' has more in common with medieval feudalism than anything modern or decent for humans to live under.

Politburo Knows Best VI - Defending the Revolution An intense system of of control inherited from the Communist Dergue of Mengistu (known in Cuba as 'Committees to Defend the Revolution') exert absolute government control and fear at the lowest (neighborhood or block) level in unseen rural areas (85% of the people) and urban lives as well.

A Bodyguard of Lies looks at the art of untruth and Ethiopian government in the bloody aftermath of the 'election'.

The utterly fascinating articles below appeared in several forums in January 2008. Both seem just too silly to be true. Mind, we don't doubt that Meles Inc. is running the Somali government like a branch of Mega or one of his pet tribal parties.

It is also clear that Ethiopia's dictator has a managerial style (with non-ferenjis of course) that relies more on Pablo Escobar than Dale Carnegie. However, these articles do seem a bit much ... but given the players though, one never knows does one?

Here one goes:

Ethiopia's top military commanders serving in Somalia have dispatched a letter to the country's interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, expressing their dissatisfaction with the policies of new Prime Minister [and the way that he] is running his new government

...

The letter was also sent to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Yusuf's main backer. The generals' central argument in the letter is that the Prime Minister makes decisions without consulting Ethiopian army commanders based in the capital Mogadishu

Ethiopian Prime Minister Zenawi is largely believed to have personally hand-picked former Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who resigned last October under Ethiopian pressure following a serious rift with President Yusuf.

Please note that this is in a news environment that reports that an Ethiopian general had slapped the Somali President:

The row between President Yusuf Ahmed and Gen. Heard started after the president accused the army general of disobeying the orders given by the Somali government

...

Irked by the Somali President's remarks, who accused the Ethiopian troops of firing artillery at the Presidential Palace and the government bases, the army general slapped the Somali president on the face.

The angry general then swore that he would kill the president and left the room.

First things first. Do the armed minions of Meles have a level of arrogance and ingrained habits of reliance on brute force that would see them feeling so entitled regarding Somalis? The answer is clearly yes.

They feel more entitled than that regarding Ethiopians on a daily basis. It is hard to imagine Somalis would be treated any differently than Ethiopians. If they and Meles could get away with it they would be slapping down their ferenji 'development partner diplomats' regularly - just like Mafia goons after protection money.

Instead Meles has to settle for threatening to harm Ethiopians and then being begged, bribed, and gently chided to treat his own people with at least a less embarrassing illusion of human decency. His instincts and those of his thugs at every level are, however, quite clear.

The part of all of this news that does not ring true is the very idea that the generals in question would dare to even imagine questioning Meles himself. Like Chairman Mao's wife said in her own defense "Whoever Chairman Mao asked me to bite, I bit."

Meles has played games like this before.

Ferenjis are always being warned not to pressure him to hard on decent government because 'the real radicals' in the upper reaches of his party will take over at any moment. No doubt ferenjis are also cautioned from expecting humane behavior from Meles based on the illusory fear of 'angry generals' too.

These news articles feed into that illusion and how Meles is really Our Man in Africa and The Great Black Hope of Vicki Huddleston's twisted spin.

The stories maybe propaganda or reflect the deepest thoughts from either side depending on how you look at it. Somali nationalism was defined from the beginning by inciting hatred of Ethiopia and the desire to take over all or part of every neighboring country. Melesian government is based also on inciting hatred of Ethiopia and the desire to rule it at the same time.

Notice how America's President made it through his entire African trip recently with no mention of Ethiopia (a visit would have been impossible)? Meles is certainly "an S.O.B. and our S.O.B." but he can be no part of photo ops - the loathsome odor of mendacity and the ripe smell of rotting flesh is a bit too fresh in everyone's nostrils for an American President to get too close to Meles in public.

So - Ethiopia was just ignored while the U.S. attacks the Sudanese government over Darfur, denounces the Burmese government over street massacres, and places sanctions on the leaders of Belarus over general human rights issues. Ethiopians suffer under a regime at least as bad and certainly worse than all these targets of human rights politics here mentioned.

The Ethiopian feudal revolutionary elite is certainly more murderous, oppressive, and corrupt than the regimes in Belarus and Burma. How about Sudan and Darfur?

The war in the Ogaden today includes government forcing educated elements of the region's population to take up arms to fight rebels. That is an attempt to split the population, group punishment, and an attempt to simply weed out the regional educated / intelligentsia for the future when they may cause problems or speak out.

Wells are poisoned, thousands killed and raped, and communities destroyed. Recently Meles, who has displayed a visceral sense of contempt for religion rooted in his primeval Stalinist instincts, referred to Ethiopia as an Orthodox Christian country.

Well most Ethiopians are just that - but previously manipulating and threatening the Ethiopian clergy was his major interest in the subject. Bringing it up now is just part of his age old belief that his rule is based on divide and rule be it tribal, regional, or religious.

Ethiopia's history of religious interaction may not be the stuff of a Disney movie but it has been remarkably peaceful and cooperative compared to the rest of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Religion is now just a new frontier for Meles to extend his systematic destruction of all things Ethiopian for the sake of the next year, month, or even day in power.

This also has nothing to do with fighting Al Quaeda. Meles has simply found the one thing that will get himself paid and 'respected' no matter how badly he treats Ethiopians or Somalis. For the right price and immunity for his crimes against humanity he would be making a video with Bin Laden tomorrow or kissing Kim Jong Il next week.

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Anyway, any idea that everyone controlling or leading any armed force in Ethiopia is not entirely a creature and absolutely obedient servant of Meles is simply stupid. The blog entry below is from February 2005 and has a similar theme.

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but the constitution says ... oh never mind

This item “National Army Expresses Support To New Peace Proposal” just does not seem right. Ideally, it should not matter where the armed forces of any country stand on any political issue. Realistically, in a non-democratic system, the military may be the guarantors of government rule so military pronouncements on civilian policy are actually even more disturbing. This is crucial for a country like Ethiopia which for 17 years experienced a particularly vicious military junta.

After the Eritrean invasion of 1998, Ethiopia became one of the few victims of aggression to ever gain an expensive victory on the battlefield who willingly submitted to binding arbitration. All members of the panel, including Ethiopia’s appointees, voted for Eritrea so a stalemate resulted. In late 2004, the Ethiopian government announced a Five Point Peace Proposal which either does or doesn‘t accept the arbitration - no one knows for sure.

The Army Chief of Staff makes some statements that raise all manner of questions. Why must the military have “an in-depth discussion” before it supports their government? Are the soldiers going to VOTE on it? How can an army NOT be “at the disposal of a public agenda“? Finally, why must the army strive to serve “the interests of the people AND government of Ethiopia?” Are the people and the government being acknowledged to have separate interests?

The issue here is not the Chief of Staff, but a political system that would place such an able and professional soldier in the uncomfortable position of commenting on the byzantine world of politics. Has the subject of Eritrea stirred such passions that supporters of civilian rule must be comforted? Maybe opponents of current government are being warned that both military and civilian forces are independently arrayed against them.

It is all too confusing and like the Kremlin and Kremlinologists of old, this too requires a dedicated Gibee-ologist to sort out. One clear point is that this whole business is unconstitutional anyway. Article 74 of that document says that the Prime Minister is “the Commander-in-Chief of the national armed forces“. Article 87 adds that “[t]he armed forces ... shall carry out any responsibilities as may be assigned to them [by whom?] under any state of emergency declared in accordance with the Constitution.” and that they should “ obey and respect the Constitution” while “ free of any partisanship to any political organization(s)”.

Not one word is written there about the armed forces making up their own minds unless the bit about who assigns them in an emergency is some kind of a loophole. Civilians all over the world may respect their own country's military (in a free society only if they choose to) but the military has the absolute duty to serve civilian authority. Even rhetoric to the contrary is dangerous.

It seems that the parts of the constitution that deny Ethiopians the right to private property and that divide them by ethnicity are meant to be taken seriously while other parts are disposable. The constitution promises all manner of human rights that aren’t respected. It also promises an absolute right to secession on demand ... but any of the 'nations, nationalities and peoples' who count on that are likely to be unpleasantly surprised.

It is clear that the rule of law is not to be taken seriously by any serious observer. If anyone out there really thinks for a second that the army is not totally and utterly under party control - there's this bridge for sale in Brooklyn you might want to take a look at. We can get you a great price too.

UPDATE: A reader alerted us to this April 5, 2003 Economist article (no link available) on the Ethio-Eritrean conflict and the utility of the myth of armed forces independence as a political factor.

To diplomats from aid-giving countries, [the Ethiopian Prime Minister] argues that his generals will not accept the loss [of Badme - one of the towns given to Eritrea by arbitration]. If Badme goes to Eritrea, his government may fall, he claims, causing chaos, Ethiopia is large and volatile, and its region, the Horn of Africa, has some strategic importance, so foreigners do not dismiss this plea out of hand,

Essentially then, the principal consumers of Ethiopian policy are aid-giving countries - who may at times have the wool pulled over their eyes quite willingly. That is why defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory in accepting arbitration and why the Five Point Peace Plan even exists.

Any single member of the armed forces who could possibly be a threat to the already united political / military center of the ruling party would long ago have 'disappeared' or be in prison. Revolutionary parties don't win wars and stay in power tolerating any internal dissent at all. If an observer can't seperate the party from government, the military definitely can not be separated from the party.

"Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power"

Chuck D.

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There are some things that even Ethiopia's dictatorship is beyond telling sincere lies about any more. For example, on the subject of any semblance of human rights or participatory government, the accent now is on convincing ferenji donors, ferenji reporters, and the Ethiopian diaspora that everyone is better off with the resident dictators than any other options.

The government hates having to convince anybody of anything. After all as has been made explicitly clear, they will "never give up for the sake of 'counting Ethiopian noses' what was taken by force from Mengistu". At this point readers should note the pretense of democracy is only put forth in terms that the writers themselves clearly do not take seriously even as propaganda.

Does it matter though?

As ever the government's principal constituency remains ferenjis who pay the bills and hold their noses and make nice with the resident dictator - hoping all the while that he doesn't embarrass them by letting some new outrage against the lives and dignity of his own people reaching the outside world.

The Ethiopian diaspora has as a rule rather particularly refused to get with the program. Unlike tens of millions in Ethiopia itself, the only folks of Ethiopian ancestry on earth who are free to speak as they wish without their lives being in danger have stubbornly stuck by the idea that Ethiopians everywhere should have the same rights of every other variety of human being.

The newest and oldest variety of spin to deal with these issues is simply supposed to be a mature knowing wise acceptance of reality. The recycled Meles message is

sure, I'm a dictator, yeah I'm corrupt - but you're stuck with me forever. Just deal with it or I will hurt even more countless millions of these Ethiopians you seem so concerned with. So give me what I want and maybe you can get in on things instead of being locked out.

A recent conversation with a cadre (more subtle than most) that one of us had spelled out the terms of this sub-Faustian bargain.

It goes a little something like this:
GIVEN:
Meles Inc. will never leave power and never stop squeezing Ethiopians for cash
THEREFORE:
Opponents of any kind should "work within the system" in the "space provided".
AFTER ALL:
Why antagonize those who have the power to make things better or to make mistakes when there are deals to be made back home and trouble to be avoided.

This logic should have been appreciated by the opposition who chose to react to a stolen election by not joining the Parliament "where legitimate opponents speak out against Meles everyday". They should have seen that the only way forward was to give up on big dreams and accept the reality of the present and future.

Well ... we thank God that so many disagree with this bit of convincing, however, well it may work in some circles.

Ferenjis in large measure have accepted it because it is not their home to begin with and their interests are career or wealth personal ones or national or institutional power or profit ones. The many ferenjis who don't play the game have to do so at considerable inconvenience to themselves compared with the usual game of 'just getting along with the native thug'.

Tens of millions of Ethiopians have no say in this arrangement or bargain or any other one. Their signatures where signed for them in their own blood, sweat, and tears at the point of a gun.

Ethiopians who still defy the dictatorship and those abroad though, still have obligations that can't be traded away so easily. Traded usually with nothing but a promise of returned land or homes, assurances of international bureaucrat gravy train job, or fat business deals scooping up Meles Inc. crumbs as ferenji aid money is cut up.

In all too many cases the pot is sweetened with the sweet promise (threat of course) that they or their people will be left alone or at least suffer not too much more for the political errors of their relatives. The ugly hand of this sort of racketeering stretches its hands forth to North America and Europe as well.

If we even momentarily accept this kind of logic then why doesn't getting along with power and seeking change within a system absolutely resistant to change apply to the following:
-Perhaps Nelson Mandela should have sought to change with apartheid from within and refrained from offending Botha & Co.
-Should the refuseniks have left Brezhnev and his cronies alone and worked on changing the gulag from within?
-Should the abolitionist movement have worked on slavery in a partnership with slave owners whom it was careful not to offend by saying anything bad about the 'peculiar institution'?
-Maybe Ghandi should have made it clear from the jump that eternal colonialism was perfectly acceptable to him as long as he got to talk in front of a few reporters whenever the Colonial Governor scheduled it.
-Civil Rights workers in the U.S. of the 1960's should have offered to keep segregated facilities in good public relations fettle with the courts instead of raising a fuss and making racists even angrier.
-The TPLF should have worked with Mengistu to change scientific socialism to revolutionary democracy from within no matter what horrors he caused because, after all, he was the author of a constitution and the dully accepted legal authority whom all were bound to accept.

Sorry Charlie, but we and countless thousands in the diaspora and countless millions in Ethiopia aren't having any of your Melesian logic. An important corollary that sustains appeals to this logic is the neo-Mussolinian logic that Meles is at least making the economic 'trains run on time'. We will take a look at that later on.

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"As a person, I have never been discourteous or nasty to anybody. I may have stood my ground a bit too directly, a bit too firmly, and I believe I have over a number of years learned to be a little less direct."

Meles Zenawi

"Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please..."

Robert Hare

Enable: to make possible or effective; specifically, to make possible or support dysfunctional behavior of someone by denying it exists or compensating for it in some way

Dictionary

“No regime that terrorizes its own citizens can be a reliable ally in the war on terror.

Congressman Chris Smith

We must stop pretending that Ethiopia is run by a respectable government when in fact it has a murderous and oppressive regime.

Ana Gomes, E.U. Parliamentarian

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[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

image 1 & image 2

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"All happy families resemble each other. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy wrote the above passage at the beginning of Anna Karenina, “All happy families resemble each other. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

This is also true of nations - look at a map of the world and it is not difficult to pick out the prosperous, peaceful and democratic countries on every continent. Or - for that matter notice those on the way to becoming so today who scant decades before where mired in every form of lethal revolutionary stupidity.

All of that ‘happy’ group display a basic commitment to some combination of capitalism, rational governance and respect for their citizen’s rights that absolutely predicts their reality.

The ‘unhappy’ group reveals many different brands of oppressive ideology, religion or any other possible justifications to serve their ruling classes. As though determined to prove that Hobbes and Malthus were right those varied dictatorships worldwide make human life "poor, nasty, brutish and short" for uncountable millions while squandering resources, time and lives.

The world has no more lessons to offer on how to move from one group to the other - reforms not revolutions work and there is no 'third way'. History may not be over but there still is only one direction to progress.

Nations are poor and unjust exactly in proportion to the lessons their rulers quite purposefully choose to ignore in the service of their own power and at the expense of everyone else. For such rulers, ‘happiness’ is achieved with each successive day they survive in power.

All other factors are secondary.

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"Do the right thing."

Da Mayor

What are the 'happy' governments doing right and how should any willing government ‘do the right thing’?

1) A Rational World View - Recognize once and for all that ideology and mantras nor bureaucratic, academic, economic, journalistic hype of any flavor will not change human nature or create wealth. The most cursory glance at a globe will show what basic policies work and which don’t. Essentially, create conditions favorable to good old fashioned capitalism - not some convenient special version of it.

2) The Rule of Law - Enshrine a constitution and laws that leaves people alone to their own devices as much as is possible by protecting them from the necessary evil of government and the occasional evil of each other. Government and its associated political parties should have little place in the economy besides the regulation of commerce and the collection of the lowest possible tax burden.

3) Civil Society - From the free flow of information all the way to independent civil institutions such as universities and even sports clubs, power and influence should devolve away from government. Basic rights such as private ownership of property can ensure that citizens have a government in their service and not the reverse.

4) Limited Government - This deserves repeated emphasis. Excepting an initial dominance of basic infrastructure projects, education and public health, government should command an ever shrinking portion of national resources. Indeed, government should, within the limits of providing for law and order, be eternally suspected of wrong.

5) Trust and Democracy - Emphasize what citizens have in common and respect tradition. While the executive should run government, she should be subject to constant criticism and fear of recall. She should have no ability to govern without the consent of popularly elected representatives and should have to obey the law as determined by an independent judiciary.

All of the above won’t happen overnight or even necessarily concurrently, but development and improvement will be obvious from day one of a decision to accept them in principal. And no ... these things are not easy to do but even a miss in any regard is better than going in entirely the wrong direction.

There is plenty of room in the above prescription to fit in everything from classical liberalism to Keynes and from social democracy to globalization ... As long as at some point a society is given the chance to develop and generate wealth and as long as some measure of that opportunity is sustained.\

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This post is a companion piece to The Birth of Plenty. Nothing that made donor countries wealthy and free and nothing that put so many other countries on a path to either wealth or freedom is being practiced by Ethiopian government.

Karl Marx during a singular lucid episode wrote in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, that

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.

The reality of Ethiopian government reflect none of these basics because it is not in the government's interest to do so nor is it in the interest of some of the government's core constituency, ferengis, to see it so. Indeed, the Ethiopian government is paying attention to NONE of the above goals - except for lying about them.

From an assumption that "Africans need a strong hand" to "Meles is an S.O.B. but he his our S.O.B." onto purely monetary and career motivations - it is clear that the convergent interests that serve to make Ethiopia a nation where suffering is a tradition are legion.

Meles Zenawi is an intelligent man but his rule is evidence that intelligence and service are not necessarily found in each other's company any more than intelligence and morality are associated.

Ethiopians don't matter to their own government but ferengis do. What is served by the policies of Meles are his own glory and power at any cost to his subjects.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and A Joyous Holiday Season of every variety to all.

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We will also take this opportunity to salute ourselves for 3.5 years of writing / illustrating / html-ing / persisting on these pages. In the blogging universe, 3.5 years is a near eternity. To our continuing surprise, readers keep coming back and new ones keep joining them. We rea