A short and very interesting opinion piece on Front Page Africa (FPA) starts by stating there is some good news regarding Human Rights in Ethiopia. It continues:
"The British Secretary of State for International Development made the pitch last week to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi…for an independent investigation into reports of Abuse in the Oromia Regional State."
Meles Zenawi, of course, accepted the idea. The "good news", if we can call it that, ends there.
It is immensely disturbing, but not unexpected, that Meles would respond positively to the British official who has no constituents in Ethiopia, while he refused for months to hear the same request coming from elected representatives from Oromia now serving in the House of Representatives. FPA continues:
It is immensely disturbing, but not unexpected, that Meles would respond positively to the British official who has no constituents in Ethiopia, while he refused for months to hear the same request coming from elected representatives from Oromia now serving in the House of Representatives. FPA continues:
"This comes to light after a formal request was made to the Ethiopian Parliament by members representing Oromia …the Speaker of the Ethiopian Parliament did not accept the request. The request has been submitted also to the Prime Minister…there has not been a response…"
The British request, designed to save their cozy relationship with Meles, has removed all the technical hurdles so far presented in Parliament preventing discussion of the issue. Eight months into the escalating abuses of human rights by Meles, Mr. Benn still assures us that they are "concerned"
But he is clearly not concerned enough to disassociate himself from Meles or to stop aiding him. The article also expresses doubt about the whole hype of concern and feels that the cosmetic agreement is meant to enable aid to be reinstated. It states that this may all be part of a ploy that will eventually reward Meles:"…[Hillary Benn] stated that the UK is seriously concerned with issues of governance, Human Rights and the detention…"
"A tactic is possible so that the international donors will resume foreign aid. This may also occur to encourage the United States to resume its good feelings and resume Military Aid Shipments."
The story underlines the notion that aid giving is as important to the international community as receiving it is to Meles. Aid provides the necessary leverage the west needs from governments that have no interest in serving their own population. If aid was given, as is so often publicized, in good faith and for the good of the people then the British would not have had to undertake last week’s PR somersault to give the impression that they have actually done something without having done anything.
It is because Aid is given in the donor’s interest that aid givers find it impossible to completely disassociate themselves from the likes of Meles. For them, to give up influence over something so puny as the massacre of locals, the contravention of freedoms, the loss of civil life and the imprisonment of thousands would be unthinkable. And neither is it out of their concern for the poor that they do not stop the aid [though this seems to be the fashionable excuse used to prop up Meles]. It would be moronic on our part to suggest that the aid-givers do not know what billions of "development aid" poured into government coffers such as Meles’s, and the contractual agreements that come attached with aid, have really meant for the poor of the world.
In Ethiopia today, thanks to Aid, we have a government that totally ignores its own people while it is completely beholden to the interests of those giving it Aid. In a sense we have a colony, an aid colony that is administered by locals, but answerable to those who finance it. For Meles, what is at stake is his ability to rule for however long he wishes, sustained by the "development" money he receives from his friends.
The alternative for him would be achieving some level of internal legitimacy by being accountable to the people of his country. His actions make it clear which path he has chosen. For aid givers it is a delicate balance. On the one hand they are trying to appear as humanitarian as possible to their own constituents while on the other they are trying to ensure that they do not lose any of their leverages that are used in a variety of contexts from policy and market control to military operations. In this calculi "development", "the poor" etc…are really only words which justify the passage of money and influence between groups that are both bent on different kinds of power – one local, one global. The poor, well the poor always get shafted.
It is because Aid is given in the donor’s interest that aid givers find it impossible to completely disassociate themselves from the likes of Meles. For them, to give up influence over something so puny as the massacre of locals, the contravention of freedoms, the loss of civil life and the imprisonment of thousands would be unthinkable. And neither is it out of their concern for the poor that they do not stop the aid [though this seems to be the fashionable excuse used to prop up Meles]. It would be moronic on our part to suggest that the aid-givers do not know what billions of "development aid" poured into government coffers such as Meles’s, and the contractual agreements that come attached with aid, have really meant for the poor of the world.
In Ethiopia today, thanks to Aid, we have a government that totally ignores its own people while it is completely beholden to the interests of those giving it Aid. In a sense we have a colony, an aid colony that is administered by locals, but answerable to those who finance it. For Meles, what is at stake is his ability to rule for however long he wishes, sustained by the "development" money he receives from his friends.
The alternative for him would be achieving some level of internal legitimacy by being accountable to the people of his country. His actions make it clear which path he has chosen. For aid givers it is a delicate balance. On the one hand they are trying to appear as humanitarian as possible to their own constituents while on the other they are trying to ensure that they do not lose any of their leverages that are used in a variety of contexts from policy and market control to military operations. In this calculi "development", "the poor" etc…are really only words which justify the passage of money and influence between groups that are both bent on different kinds of power – one local, one global. The poor, well the poor always get shafted.
Opinon piece from FPA can be read here.
4 comments:
very insightful commentary... I enjoyed reading it immensely..
Well said. The way things are now, giving the Ethiopian government aid is actually the unethical thing to do. Either give aid directly to the people or none at all.
A good book that would suppor your opinion in this article is "war lord politics". It echos what you are saying in short it says governments such as the one in ethiopia do not have internal support whether political or financial(tax and so on) that their only income comes from donor contries, they in the end becoming the true constituents. One way to disrupt this chaos is to continue the civil disobidence by forcing meles to take drastic measures so the constituents of the donor nations realise their tax money is being used to prop up a dictator.
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