ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The Ethiopian Olympic team arrived home to a hero’s welcome Wednesday, as thousands of ecstatic fans lined up the capital’s streets to greet the track stars.

The team, led by double gold medallists Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, was greeted by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and other government officials as they stepped off their plane at the capital’s Bole Airport.

They were then paraded on a convoy of black, open-top Cadillacs amid chanting fans that crammed almost every street pavement that stretched for a few miles.

“Kenenisa and Tirunesh were absolutely fantastic in Beijing. They really deserve such welcoming,” one fan said of the enthusiasm shown in the athletics-mad nation.

A ceremony was held afterwards at the 30,000-capacity National Stadium on the city centre where an overly-packed crowd had gathered since 7 AM (1000GMT) and braved rainfall to attend the event.

“Our athletes have placed the country among the elite of countries that excel in athletics,” Ethiopia’s Minister of youth and sport, Aster Mamo, said during the event.

“We, as a country and government, are very proud of the achievements,” she added.

Moments earlier, Kenenisa said he was overwhelmed by the crowd’s affectionate response.

“It was a special moment. The fans have repaid our success with their enthusiastic welcome,” he said, as dozens of cameramen hounded the 26-year old track star for photographs.

Ethiopia finished 18th in Beijing with four gold, one silver and two bronze at the final medals standing, a massive improvement from Athens where they finished 28th with two gold, three silver and two bronze.

The country’s success story, was however a tale of their two athletes.

Tirunesh Dibaba, also known as “the baby-faced assassin”, became the first woman in Olympic history to have won a long-distance double when she produced her traditional final lap burst to grab the 5,000m race on August 22, a week after winning the 10,000m.

Compatriot Kenenisa also repeated the feat a day later and become the first man to have taken both titles since 1980, when another Ethiopian, Miruts Yifter, won in Moscow.

But the Ethiopians did not forget a mention of their icon Haile Gebrselassie, who chose to compete on the 10,000m rather than the marathon and finished a disappointing sixth.

They gave him a rapturous cheer as his name was announced in the stadium.

“Let’s not forget that he had opted out of the marathon due to reasonable reasons, and Kenenisa had also benefitted from Haile’s tactics”, a young fan told AFP, refering to Haile’s role during the 10,000 win.

The national committee is established by the Ethiopian Ministry of Youth and Sports, together with the Ethiopian Athletics Federation and the Ethiopian Olympic Committee.

Accordingly, the national committee will organize a special welcome ceremony for the athletes as well as organize various prizes for them. The athletes are expected to arrive in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, and thousands of people are expected to welcome them on their arrival at the airport and on their way to the center of Addis Ababa, home to close to five million people.

The athletes, according to the ministry of Youth and Sports, will be received at the Addis Ababa stadium. Many governmental and private organizations are expected to presents flowers and various gifts to the athletes.

Ethiopia, which sent around 30 athletes to the Beijing Olympics was lucky to collect more gold medals than the previous Olympics in Athens.

Ethiopia won four gold, one silver and 2 bronze medals.

“Our athletes, who have honored us with these accomplishments, deserve our love and respect as they have once again reaffirmed their status as heroes and heroines of the millennium and superb promoters of our country,” a statement from the Ethiopian ministry of Information ministry said.

The government is expected to give the athletes a good amount of money.

“The colorful reception by the public for our athletes returning from Beijing after victoriously accomplishing the national mission they were given by the government and people is expected eagerly because of the much colorful joy it adds to our Millennium celebrations,” the ministry said.

Capital - The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has issued a certificate of accreditation to the latest national political party, Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ).

In its ordinary session held on Friday August 22, 2008, the Electoral Board decided to issue accreditation after it examined that UDJ has met all the legal criteria, filed the necessary documents, and made adjustments as per recommendations of the Board, said Tesfaye Mengesha, NEBE Office Chief.

UDJ Public Relations issued a statement on the same day the party obtained the accreditation certificate, congratulating its members and supporters. Hailu Araaya (PhD) Vice Chair in charge of Public Affairs appreciated the decision of the Board which he said, witnessed an efficient performance. “We had hoped that if we met all the criteria as per the law we would get the accreditation and it has happened but it should not mean that it was a very easy process, “Dr. Hailu explains to Capital when asked how he assesses the overall process his party went through to obtain the certificate, “Some obstacles had to be overcome.”

Ethiopia has blasted Somalia’s political leaders for getting bogged down in ”internal squabbles” while millions of Somalis live on the brink of a humanitarian disaster in a country that remains violent and ungoverned.

Thousands of Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia at the end of 2006 to reinstall an interim government headed by president Abdullahi Yusuf. But it has a tenuous grip on power and its time in office has been marked by growing insurgency, clan warfare, and the mass displacement of civilians.

Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times that a rift between the president and prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein, appointed eight months ago after his predecessor fell out with Mr Yusuf, was the biggest obstacle to peace.

Ethiopia’s own security and credibility are at stake in Somalia, which it invaded to oust a coalition of Islamist groups that had taken control. As the interim government’s main international backer, it has closeted the president and prime minister in Addis Ababa for the past week as it seeks to bridge the divide between them.

In Mogadishu, the Somali capital, Ethiopian soldiers and troops from the transitional federal government remain the target of almost daily attacks by Islamist insurgents and clan gunmen opposed to Mr Yusuf’s regime.

“The main challenge now is not what they call the enemy. It’s an intra-government crisis that is preventing them from focusing on the tasks they need to get done,” said Mr Mesfin. “There has been a lack of vigour and, if I may say so, a lack of commitment.”

Since the beginning of last year more than 8,000 Somalis have been killed and 1m forced from their homes by fighting, which has centred on the capital Mogadishu. Humanitarian relief efforts have been undermined by the assassination of aid workers and the United Nations says that, due also to the additional impact of a drought, up to 3.5m Somalis – or nearly half the population – could need food aid later this year.

But Mr Seyoum gave a less bleak account of the security situation today than many independent observers, saying the country was experiencing less daily violence than Iraq and Afghanistan. To create a durable peace, he said the president and the prime minster needed to implement plans to create regional administrations that would give people a greater stake in government and, potentially, help to reconcile Somalia’s warring clans and sub-clans.

The rift between the leaders overshadowed the signing of a peace agreement in Djibouti on Monday between the interim government and one of two factions of the Somali political opposition. The agreement was welcomed on Thursday by the African Union, but it did little to lighten a mood of gloom among western diplomats who follow Somalia, because it had already been rejected by the other faction as well as by the al-Shabaab Islamist extremists leading the insurgency.

Mr Seyoum said that al-Shabaab, which the US says is linked to al-Qaeda, had been critically weakened: “They cannot sustain their own activities, let alone disband the government.” But other analysts say their strength and boldness appears to be increasing.

21 August 2008 – Under a draft law, Ethiopia could see severe restrictions on civil society and even closures of organisations working on contentious issues, such as human rights and governance, cautions CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation in a recent analysis.

“We appeal to the government to stop the introduction of the bill in its current form. If enacted, many organisations will be forced to choose between stopping their work on vital issues or facing closure and possible imprisonment,” said Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS Secretary General.

The government has released three consecutive drafts of the Charities and Societies Proclamation over the last few months. While the recent draft, due to be introduced to Parliament in October, makes some improvement on the last two, it retains many draconian provisions.

The government has stated that the intention of the bill is to increase civil society organisations’ (CSOs) transparency and accountability to stakeholders, but local and international groups have expressed concern that it will instead serve to silence dissent.

CIVICUS’ report lists a number of concerns regarding the law, including:

· The Proclamation prevents CSOs that receive more than 10% of their income from foreign sources from working on issues of public importance, including human rights, gender and religious equality, children’s rights, the rights of the disabled, conflict resolution and judicial reform. Given the lack of domestic fundraising opportunities, most organisations rely on funds from abroad.

· The Proclamation permits excessive government interference in the functioning of CSOs, through the power to carry out random investigations at will. Among other requirements, CSOs must provide the government with seven days notice of any general meeting.

· By creating a web of exhaustive reporting procedures, the Proclamation gives the government a convenient way to intimidate CSOs. Mandatory annual reporting, requirements to keep meticulous financial records as well as re-registration every three years, leaves ample room for possible procedural delays and intimidation by the authorities.

· Once a CSO is denied registration, or fails to apply, the organisation is then declared unlawful. If members and supporters continue their involvement with the CSO, they risk severe punishments, including three to fifteen years in prison. According to international standards, the decision to officially register should be voluntary not imposed by the government. Such harsh repercussions for breaching the provisions of the law could deter the free participation of individuals in civil society activities.

· CSOs have limited rights to appeal against decisions taken under the Proclamation. For example, if a CSO is denied registration, it will not be able to ask for a judicial review of the facts on which the government has based its assessment. Aside from amounting to a denial of justice, it could also allow authorities to arbitrarily silence independent groups and individuals.

If the current draft of the Proclamation is passed, the already narrow space for civil society in Ethiopia could be even further restricted. In recent years, political opposition, media and civil society activists have been systematically harassed and even imprisoned because of their criticism of the government.

“The government must listen to the concerns of the country’s civil society. Their activities contribute immensely to the people of Ethiopia. But, sadly, rather than promote this vital work, this bill threatens to criminalise it,” says Srinath.

The Proclamation, if permitted to pass, would violate Ethiopia’s commitments to international and regional human rights agreements, as well as its own constitution. Article 31 of the Constitution specifically guarantees, “Every person has the right to freedom of association for any cause or purpose”.

An analysis of the Proclamation is available at: http://www.civicus.org/csw_files/AnalysisEthiopiaCharitiesProc140808.pdf

Rosemary Righter

It was at a railway crossing near Diri Dawa, the provincial capital in the Ethiopian Ogaden desert, that I saw them: small children’s hands, blackened by sun, clutching at the slats of a cattle truck dumped on a siding. The year was 1984, the height of the Ethiopian famine that claimed about a million lives. These young things must have expired, hours later, of heat and thirst in temperatures peaking at about 48C, in the truck where they had deliberately been left to die.

I know it was deliberate because I took quick photographs, muttered a few words they couldn’t understand, and headed in to Diri Dawa to get help. The famine relief office officials shrugged and directed me to the military police commander. He cut me short: yes, he knew where they were. They were ethnic Somali kids - Somalis, the majority population of the Ogaden, had been in rebellion against Ethiopian rule for years - and they had been caught throwing stones at a train.

But they would die, I persisted. He lit a cigarette. “So what: they knew the risks and they must pay the price.”

You did not have to be caught throwing stones to “pay the price” in 1984. That famine in the Ogaden, the worst-affected region in Ethiopia, was far deadlier than it need have been because, until the international outcry forced it somewhat to relent, the Marxist Mengistu dictatorship blocked food aid to rebel areas, using it as a weapon of war.

What the world saw back then they are seeing again: heart-rending photographs of wide-eyed famished Ethiopian children. What the world did not hear much about then was the criminal exploitation of suffering. What the world will not see clearly, even now, is that disasters like drought can cause crops to fail, but should never, in a half-decently run country, lead to mass deaths from malnutrition. Famines in this day and age are man-made, if not by the sins of commission perpetrated by the thuggish Mengistu regime (and by North Korea’s) then by culpable omission coupled with lousy policies.

Mengistu was overthrown in 1991, fleeing Addis Ababa to retire in the congenial climate of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Because Meles Zenawi, the Tigrayan rebel leader who ousted him, shed some of his Albanian-model Stalinist baggage, he was fêted by Westerners as a moderniser and showered with development aid.

A spot of election-rigging in 2005, followed by the shooting of up to 200 pro-democracy demonstrators, caused some temporary tut-tutting, after which aid quietly resumed and, in Britain’s case, doubled. Not so quietly, the Ethiopian Army is again cracking heads in the Ogaden, burning villages and, according to Human Rights Watch, torturing and publicly executing not only rebels of the resurgent Ogaden National Liberation Front but also civilians sympathising with them. In the Ogaden, famine looms. Plus ça change.

Still, Meles and Mengistu are not la même chose. Meles is a bit of a thug, but he has introduced some judicial and commercial reforms, devolved powers from Addis Ababa to the regions, improved education, curbed child mortality through anti-poverty programmes and, importantly, advocated greater equality for women. He has also ploughed 17 per cent of government spending into agriculture, three to four times as much as most other African governments. He claims that farm production is growing by 10 per cent a year, and boasts that, two years ago, the country actually exported maize (odd, that, when in a “good” year millions of Ethiopians rely on foreign food aid).

After the last big drought, in 2003, the Ethiopian Government worked with donors to create a system designed to make famine history. It includes a Productive Safety Net, a public works programme providing seven million poor Ethiopians - nearly a tenth of the population - with food or cash, and a Famine Early Warning System that measures rainfall, livestock prices, household spending and signs of malnutrition.

Textbook stuff, and in stark contrast with the junta’s attempt to hide the 1984 famine from the world. And yet… how, then, has the failure of the “little rains” this spring, and the consequent loss of a single harvest, translated into a huge emergency affecting ten million people, by the aid industry’s probably inflated account, and 4.6 million by the Government’s defensively conservative assessment?

Why are its emergency grain reserves so depleted that food rations have been reduced by a third, at least 75,000 children are already severely malnourished and hunger affects two thirds of the country and has, this time, spread to the towns? Why is Ethiopia, a country with lush two-crop breadbaskets as well as deserts and eroded hill farms, still so vulnerable that, as Meles himself admits, “one unexpected weather event can push us over the precipice”?

There are two big causes, and drought is not one of them. They are within the power of politicians to tackle, and tackled they must finally be, with the requisite sense of urgency. The first is Ethiopia’s population explosion; with families averaging 5.4 children, it has soared from 33.5 million in the 1984 famine to 77 million now. In a country where 85 per cent of the people rely on farming for a living, this means that, per head, food production has actually fallen since 1984 - by more than a third - and farm plots get smaller and smaller. A fifth of Ethiopian farmers try to survive on areas no more than 20 metres by 40 metres per person, yielding no more than half their cereal needs.

The second is Meles’s purblind refusal to reverse the Marxist folly of his 1995 law that put all land under state ownership. “Land holding certificates” graciously permit farmers to till land that their forebears have farmed for generations; but surveys show that 46 per cent still expect to lose their farms.

The policy is a disaster. It discourages careful land management; it deprives farmers of collateral to raise bank loans to buy fertiliser and agricultural tools; and they cling to plots too small to feed their families because, with nothing to sell, they have no alternative. The coffee and infant rose-growing sectors apart, most Ethiopians farm as their ancestors did, with hoes, wooden ploughs, oxen and an anxious eye on the skies.

Enough food aid is once more pouring in to stave off serious famine; but it will not remedy Ethiopia’s deepening aid dependency and rural despair. With a smaller - because more mobile - landowning rural population, able to access loans to invest in higher-yield seeds, tractors and drip irrigation, Ethiopia could feed itself. But will donor governments champion the farmers’ right to get back their land? On past experience, pigs will fly. And the next famine will be a matter of time.

Rosemary Righter is an associate editor of The Times

Officials say 116 Ethiopian troops arrived Monday in Sudan, joining the more than 200 Ethiopian forces who have arrived since Saturday, according to a release from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The deployment of Ethiopian troops is part of an effort to support peacekeeping and stability efforts in the volatile Darfur region.

The Ethiopian forces, who will operate in the West Darfur areas of Kulbus and Silea, are expected to provide engineering support for a “water installation and the erection of tents and electric power lines,” the release said.

I. Introduction

Lately, especially after EPDRF’s realization of its defeat during the 2005 election and the rejection of its policies by the people of Ethiopia, some of its representatives and cadres have began advancing an idea, possibly concocted up at the Prime Minister’s office, that respecting the rule of law and democracy are not necessary for Ethiopia. In fact, the concocted propaganda tool that they have begun using sounds like the myth that Ato Meles has laid out in his so-called book, which I possess the first version of the blue-print.The countries that they are trying to mimic are what the World Bank called High Performance Asian Economies, HPAEs. They are: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The propaganda arguments presented by representatives of the Zenawi regime run like this: since these countries achieved their economic miracles under one-party systems, the EPDRF would like to follow their footsteps in order to achieve high economic growth and political stability.

The purpose of this short article is to show that there are indeed quite a few economic policy lessons to be learned from the experiences of Southeast Asian countries. Second, if the last 18 years that Ethiopia has been under the EPDRF are any witness, this country is neither in a position to mimic these countries and bring about measurable economic change, nor is the political and economic phenomena of Ethiopia comparable to those countries. In the process, I refute the argument that is being presented by the EPDRF representatives on both factual and empirical basis. I do so by briefly presenting the economic, social, and political experiences of the Southeast Asian countries and by comparing and contrasting them with that of the Ethiopian economic situation and political realities. I then present a series of conjunctures on why the regime wants us to believe that democracy is unnecessary for Ethiopia.

II. A Brief Summary of Some of the Common Characteristics of the High Performance Asian Economies (HPAEs):

A. Shared Growth

Sharing the wealth created through good policies and hard work is one of the remarkable accomplishments of the HPAEs. What was also remarkable is that the rise in their income levels was also accompanied by economic equality. These countries accomplished this remarkable feat with land reform, by expanding educational opportunities (by making primary and secondary education free), access to public health care systems, and a significant amount of investment in rural infrastructure such as clean water systems as well as communication and transportation systems. These policies were not designed to equalize incomes but to provide their citizens the tools they needed to raise their own income levels and to give them hope. In the process, these policies raised the purchasing power of each individual, which in turn benefited the local business owners. The rising incomes raised everyone’s hopes thereby encouraging everyone to work hard.

In contrast, Ethiopia is a vicious cycle of poverty due to the small landholdings, poor agricultural practices, a lack of potable water (with only 7% of the rural population having access to clean water, for example), and deteriorating health and environments. These circumstances have been made worse by poor governance characterized by repressive minority rule. Even though Ato Meles likes to talk about how wealthy the peasants have become, the fact of the matter is that his policies have heavily contributed to their increased misery. Income inequality in the country has been rising under the reign of the EPDRF, while at the same time a handful of former guerilla fighters have become super rich nearly overnight. The corruption scourge (with a corruption index ranking of 139th out 179 countries) is so rampant and so repugnant that it has begun changing the culture of that country.

As I will argue later with another write-up, even the highly nationalistic and educated individuals have come to the sad realization that they cannot make it in life unless they become part of the corruption scourge. Such an attitude, driven by bad governance, denies everyone the right to be an equal participant of the economy. It denies hard working citizens the opportunity to reap the benefits of their hard work and the stakes that their country may hold for them. Rampant corruption erodes the hopes of citizens, and unfortunately, this is what is taking place in Ethiopia. When competent government bureaucrats realize that they could not serve the people who paid for their education, they choose to fend for themselves by working in the private sector or for the NGOs. When this is not possible, they leave their beloved country and become political refugees in neighboring countries, most of them facing increasing hardships and terror.

When educated people become refugees, Ethiopia loses in a multiple of ways: being unable to use its young and educated sons and daughters, and being unable to recoup the costs it incurred for raising and educating the same people. There are also other social costs that I would refrain from elaborating to save space. A significant portion of the refugees make it to the West, countries which enjoy a comparative advantage in human capital. But their departure from their homeland adds to the problem of the brain-drain, a loss that poor countries such as Ethiopia cannot afford. In Ethiopia today, not only we do not have leaders who understand this issue, but the same “leaders” have exacerbated the situation by threatening the intellectuals that they would be replaced by Nigerians.

B. Increased accumulation of human capital

Investment in people, through good educational policies was one of the most important polices of the HPAEs. They focused on primary and secondary education levels whose rate of return is much higher than university level (tertiary) education. By making primary and secondary education free, these countries raised the literacy rates, thereby laying the foundation for a highly skilled work force available for both the business and government sectors.

In contrast, the failed educational policies of the EPDRF have kept the county’s position in terms of education one of the lowest in Africa. For example, according to the UNDP and other sources, the net elementary school enrolment ratio is the lowest in Sub-Sahara Africa at only 35%, the drop-out rate being among the highest. The literacy rate is 34% for females and 49% for males, which averages out to be about 41%. Gross Tertiary (college level) School Enrollment is around 1%. To add insult to injury, the last 18 years of EPDRF policies have exacerbated the situation since the EPDRF has forced intellectuals to leave their country, making Ethiopia’s brain to continuously bleed and be hugely impaired due to the effects of the brain-drain.

For example, I have been told that the number of doctors of Ethiopian origin who work in a single or two cities in the USA was greater than the numbers of doctors who work in the entire country of Ethiopia. Logic would tell you that doctors should be where most of the patients are located- in Ethiopia. Logic would also indicate to you that teachers should be residing in countries where they are the most needed, where the student/teacher ratio is one of the highest in the world – Ethiopia. One Ethiopian young mathematician tells me that, by his count and just in the last few years, the number of college level mathematicians who either have left their Homeland or decided never to go back home, mainly for fear of persecution is over fifty. This explains why the TPLF owned conglomerates, which were bought at throw away prices during the privatization process, are known to be operating way below capacity due to the shortages of human capital.

C. Rapid accumulation of physical capital:

The governments of HPAEs encouraged their people to raise savings rates which were used for domestic investment. These policies were accompanied by changes in demographics, which were accomplished through both low birth and death rates. Such demographic transitions allowed fewer children below the working age population while allowing a larger portion of the population to be economically productive.

In addition, their policies enabled them to attract huge sums of foreign investments. In contrast, the rampant inflation rates in Ethiopia, the IMF reporting it to be 40% for the month of June, is not only eroding the purchasing power of savers’ incomes but the real negative interest rates are wiping out their assets on a daily basis. The negative real rate of returns could only help the ruling party-owned corporations who are enjoying preferential treatments by the government-controlled financial institutions.

Regarding the demographics of the country, because of the absence of a good national population policy and/or the lack of the provision of more than basic health services, the country is flooded with high birth rates. As a result, a significant proportion of the population is young and unproductive, where children under fifteen years of age make up nearly 50 percent of the population.

Add to this the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which continues to wipe out a significant portion of the working age population. In contrast to countries such as Uganda, which made reversals of the HIV/AIDS infections, thanks to their campaigns for awareness and treatments, the autocrats of Addis Ababa instead wasted the country’s meager resources in waging senseless wars with the country’s neighbors, in creating ethnic and religious conflicts and spending a huge sum of money to suppress dissent.

In addition, the Ethiopian economy faces environmental degradation due to wind and soil erosion and the absence of good policies for the country to protect its resources. Such a neglect of the environment denies the country from developing its own homegrown physical capital.

D. Rapid growth of manufactured exports.

More than anything else, the HPAEs are known to have promoted manufactured exports. As everyone knows, the gains from the export of processed and manufactured goods are far greater than those from exporting primary commodities mainly because of the higher value added. Manufactured exports create economies of scale when domestic firms produce to satisfy both the domestic and the international market demands. Exporting manufactured goods also allow both the importation and development of new technologies, learning by doing and international best practices; create incentives for R & Ds, which in turn have multiplier effects on their economies. Luckily enough, their policies were also aided by the Cold War, in which Western countries gave favorable treatments (lower tariff rates, etc.) to the goods and services exported by the HPAEs.

In contrast, the EPDRF has focused on an agricultural-based industrialization, if it can be called industrialization at all. The fact of the matter is that, Ethiopia is one of those poor countries which uses primitive ox-driven cultivation system, that no one in his/her right mind could call it agro-industrialization. One aspect of agro-industrialization is agro-processing of food products.

When it comes to Ethiopia, such an industrialization has many constraints, including inconsistent and insufficient supply of raw material, seasonality of crops, harvest losses due to droughts, lack of efficient infrastructure such as good roads, nearby efficient ports, poorly trained personnel, weak and non-existent markets, absence of good managerially skilled work force, among others.

The fact of the matter is that, even though the EPDRF has been talking about agro-based industrialization for the last 18 years, nearly all of Ethiopia’s export revenues come from the agricultural (primary product) sector- the agricultural sector constituting nearly 60% of the country’s exports. Unfortunately, not only do the export prices of these primary products tend to fluctuate very highly, but their relative prices do decline over time as well. It is a well-known fact that countries that are commodity dependent or exhibit a narrow export basket, as does Ethiopia, often suffer from export instability arising from inelastic and unstable global demand. Ethiopia’s major source of exports, coffee, is still being exported unprocessed. Export diversification is one way to alleviate these particular constraints.

We hear from the government, on a constant basis, how many dollars the country earned through exports. Unfortunately, it never wants to show the employment figures created by phantom exports. Even the much-advertised export of flowers, it only accounts for a little over $100 million, a small sum for a nation of 82 million people. The flower business is also causing tremendous environmental degradation. The government never reports how much profit the country has gained by selling the flowers. It never tells us the effects being landlocked on exports, something that the TPLF and Ato Meles are proud of. Thanks to Meles’s ceding the country’s sea outlets, the foreign company running the Djibouti port, Ethiopia’s only outlet, has Ethiopia by the balls. It increases tariffs at will, as it recently did with a 25% hike. Lately, it has been reported that Ethiopia pays over $300 million every year to Djibouti for handling of the former’s imports and exports. By this count, Ethiopia had already paid billions of dollars to Djibouti and other countries over the last 18 years reign of the EPDRF, and will pay so dearly for many years to come for handling of its imports and exports.

E. Targeting Specific Industrial Policies and Avoiding Rent-Seeking

Even though some of the HPAEs were governed by single dominant parties, they completely liberalized their economies. This liberalization of the economic sector was accomplished despite the fact that these countries were surrounded by communist countries with command economic systems. While following liberalized economic systems, the policymakers, using the so-called Deliberation Councils, avoided rent-seeking behaviors (corruption). The Deliberation Councils were filled with highly-educated and competent bureaucrats who were purposely insulated from the political process. The Deliberation Councils were also in charge of targeting specific and narrow development industries. These government interventions included targeting very narrow and specific industries, directing credit, and export promotion. To accomplish their goals, they used licensing, quotas, tariffs, and export subsidies to restrict imports and promote exports. Whenever those policies failed to work, the incentives were withdrawn.

In contrast, the EPDRF cadres decided to follow the Russian model, misappropriating public funds and giving away formerly government owned institutions and sectors to the ethnicallyowned firms. In Ethiopia, the EPDRF inserted its cadres, who happen to be highly paid and unproductive, into these ethnically-owned and other government institutions. In so doing, the EPDRF has stifled the productivity of competent bureaucrats. Any targeting of some sector is geared to benefit the ethnically-owned businesses. There is no press freedom which would expose the rampant corruption, nepotism and cronyism that has engulfed the country for too long.

F. Stable Macroeconomic Environments:

Macroeconomic stability is manifested by the absence of high inflation and interest rates and stable financial institutions, relatively low budget and trade deficits, minimal rent-seeking behaviors (that is, low corruption), and well-defined property rights . In the HPAEs, lower inflation rates protected the public’s savings from being eroded by high inflation rates and raised confidence in the banking sector. Relatively low interest rates raised the real profits of the business sector. Low budget and trade deficits minimized the occurrence a financial crisis and dependence on foreign economic assistance, which do not come free.

In contrast, as I showed elsewhere, Ethiopia is facing rampant inflation, huge budget and trade deficits and high corruption. The lack of well-defined property rights has allowed the EPDRF owned conglomerates to grab any property they can find. As I argued elsewhere, by not making land privately owned, the EPDRF has not only denied the peasants to raise capital using their land as their collateral for potential loans, but the policy also has been used to scare the peasants and to force them to be real slaves of the ruling party. It seems that the same policy has created a perfect situation for the EPDRF to give Ethiopian land to foreigners at will, for the same policy effectively has made the EPDRF to be the owner of all the land of Ethiopia.

Admittedly, SOME of those leaders of the HPAEs have done something no one desires and they already have admitted their mistakes and shortcomings. They are no friends of tyranny, at least not anymore, especially the most abominable one such as the one that is being practiced in Ethiopia. For example, the former president of South Korea, Kim Dae-Jung blamed the 1997/98 financial crisis on “authoritarian leaders who placed economic development ahead of democracy.”5 The autocrats in Addis may invoke the Chinese economic growth as their model to imitate. Again, the Chinese economic, political and cultural situations are quite different from those in Ethiopia. Even though one could be hesitant to call the Chinese economic growth as an economic development, China was able to garner such a sustained growth by allowing economic freedom, the protection of property rights and a functioning market system. None of these realities exists in Ethiopia.

Be that as it may, a good leader is not one which longs for and looks up to the misdeeds and shortcomings of previous leaders. Such a desire to continue tyranny is distasteful and not one that healthy leaders could contemplate about and impose them on their own people. God: what kind of curse have you brought to that country and poor people?!

Now that I have briefly presented the experiences of the HPAEs, I would like to conclude this part by presenting the following parable, which, in my view, sums up the point I have tried to make:

During the 1988 American vice-presidential debate which took place between the late Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen and the Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle, and after the then senator Quayle was asked what kind of qualifications he had to be president in the event that the president was to die or be assassinated as it happened to John F. Kennedy, and after Mr. Quayle answered in the affirmative, Mr. Bentsen said: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

We echo the late Senator Bentsen and say to the tyrannical leader in Addis: Ato Meles, we and the rest of the world know how those countries achieved those enviable goals. We know how nationalistic the leaders of the Southeast Asian countries were (are). The world knows that they did not instigate ethnic strife. They did not commit treasonous acts by ceasing the territories of their respective countries. We know how their party members cared about the people in their entire respective countries. There was no rampant corruption as it exists in Ethiopia… We know Southeast Asia…. We know the leaders of the HPAEs. Ethnocentric autocrats in Addis, you’re not like the leaders of the HPAEs, not even close. The long 18 years of EPDRF’s misrule reveals that, it is no Southeast Asian political parties which GOVERNED the HPAEs. Neither the world nor the Ethiopian people would be fooled. Nor would they be intimidated.

My readers, if you are convinced by the facts and logic as well as the contrasts that I presented above, let’s follow the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen and chant together: “we know …., you’re no….!” Well done, and thank you!

III. SOME CONJECTURES:

So, these being the facts, why do the leaders of the EPDRF concocted such a ridiculous suggestion and comparison? Comparing the experiences of the HPAEs and that of Ethiopia is comparing apples and oranges, really. Therefore, one cannot escape the thought that Ato Meles and his group concocted such a propaganda tool in order to use it for their political consumption, and possibly out of desperation.6 Here are SOME conjectures. It may be that:

1. The pressure from the public is mounting against the EPDRF, and as a result, the EPDRFis confused, to the point of becoming schizophrenic. On the one hand, Meles has beenlying to his foreign backers and the donor countries that democracy prevailed in Ethiopia.On the other hand, it has been difficult for the EPDRF to hide the facts: that it has ruled Ethiopia with brute force. It knows that the world now knows it has robbed the peoples’ votes on daylight. By telling the world that it wants to follow the HPAEs, Meles is effectively admitting to the world that he is an authoritarian. Such contradictory statements and admitting to rule Ethiopia with brute force is an act of desperation.

2. As one of my other friends pointed out, knowing that the leaders of the EPDRF will not stay in power (quite possibly not even in Ethiopia) for too long, they must have decided to concoct an idea, no matter how ridiculous it may sound, in order to buy time for their exit. Knowing that there are other graceful ways of exit, following this route is an act of desperation.

3. The regime is facing a crisis, both political and economic. On the political side, the regime knows that the Ethiopian people have rejected its ethnocentric policies and authoritarianism. It faces dissatisfaction and cynicism on every policy it follows, mainly because of the corruption scourge and the selfish nature of the EPDRF and its cadres. The 2005 election revealed to the EPDRF that, if allowed, the people of Ethiopia can cast their votes peacefully, no matter how much they were intimidated, arrested, or killed. Given the opportunity, the people of Ethiopia showed to the EPDRF autocrats and the rest of the world that they could show their dissatisfaction by peacefully marching in the streets of Addis Ababa, in millions, and come out and vote those they did not like out of office. Humiliated by the outcome, the EPDRF leaders do not want to repeat the same “mistake” by going through a similar election process and talking about democracy. Therefore, they are laying the ground to do away completely with any semblance of democracy. It must be due this same humiliation that the EPDRF has received why its cadres have now begun terrorizing the general populace- threatening or firing those workers who voted for the opposition parties.

4. Ato Meles wants to engage the cadres with such a frivolous issue, in order to keep them busy and confused. For those of us who know the tricks Meles has played and how he played them in the past, a similar concoction has been adopted right after the debacle of the senseless war with Eritrea. When members of his own party, some of them founders of the TPLF rejected his ceding of the prize to win the silly war and the country’s sovereignty, he concocted the idea of fighting corruption. Well, we all know what happened to the level of corruption in the country after Meles’s concoction: It skyrocketed since then! Unfortunately, he succeeded: He threw in his opponents in jail and purged the rest of them from the party. He succeeded in his deception by deflecting the public’s attention away from himself. He managed to put the docile members of his party, and especially the ones who are the most selfish, who are summarily called in Amharic as the HODAMs, in his column. He might have done it out of desperation even then, but he succeeded and he thinks he would succeed again.

5. Ato Meles probably concocted this idea of ruling Ethiopians by hook or crook, and in the process, placate the EPDRF cadres, especially those who have stakes at the EPDRF controlled conglomerates. On the one hand, he is terrified by the news of the tariff hike that Djibouti recently announced. He is also terrified by the fact that his cadres would turn against him for making the country land-locked to begin with. Having a sea access is very essential to these corrupt conglomerates and the rest of the business sector in which the EPDRF is involved in, which according to some people, its involvement in the Ethiopian economy is so deep that it even includes small retail trade such as exporting of Ethiopian traditional bread, the injera. The fear adds to the schizophrenic nature of the EPDRF leadership thereby making them to be desperate and concoct ridiculous ideas to be used for propaganda purposes. Some even speculate that, the same desperation may be behind why Ato Meles gave away huge tracts of Ethiopian land to the president of Djibouti. They further argue that Meles decided to implement his plan to give away Ethiopian land to the Sudan so that the EPDRF owned conglomerates would have access to the Port of Sudan. If what they claim is to be true, the same desperation must have spread to the entire ruling clique and forced some of them to be schizophrenic. They ask, what else could explain this bizarre behavior of betrayal of a country, making her be land-locked, giving away the prizes that comes with a winning of a war, lying to the people that the so-called Ethio-Eritrean Commission has ruled in favor Ethiopia while the fact is to the contrary, and now the giving away a big chunk of the country’s territory to a neighboring country? In any case, the giving away of the countries territory and fertile lands is another manifestation of desperation to stay in power, even if it is a blatant betrayal of trust.

6. Knowing that it has lost the backing of the general public, the EPDRF concocted this idea in order to send a terrorizing message to both the opposition parties and the general public by sending the message that, whether they like it or not, the EPDRF is here to rule them for many years to come. In reality, it is a desperate move taken by a desperate party.

7. Create an excuse for those foreign powers and supporters that their governments were behind the rulers of the same Southeast Asian governments and they ought to do the same for the EPDRF. Second, the EPDRF is trying to suggest to them that, if a one-party system was good for those countries mentioned above, it has to be good for Ethiopia as well. Some of those foreign governments and/or their unsuspecting representatives probably like such an excuse. Such blackmailing, however, would not last.

In addition to their contempt for the people they rule, the EPDRF leaders have, in a stealth manner, instigated ethnic and religious conflicts - the latter a phenomena rarely seen in Ethiopia prior to their rule. It is quite possible for them to try to do it on a massive scale, especially when the going becomes a little too hard. Fortunately, those who were pushed for an ethnic-based strife had come to their senses, and in most cases, the spirit of Ethiopianism has triumphed over sectarianism and disintegration. As a disciple of Isayas Afewerqi, Meles undermined the unity of Ethiopia for nearly two decades. Fortunately, so far, people have refused to go along with his plans and instigations. Such refusals had frustrated the leaders of the EPDRF. That may be why they have become as desperate as to concoct such a myth.

8. By comparing the incomparable situations that Ethiopia is in with those of Southeast Asia, the TPLF (EPDRF) is trying to fool the general public and the unsuspecting cadres that Ethiopia is in par with those countries and placate them in the process –by feeding them with empty words, as the Prime minister has been doing it to the peasants – telling the world that they have gotten richer under his rule, while in fact they are starving. At the same time, by advancing such issues, Meles is trying to scare the west that Ethiopia would ally itself with such undemocratic countries such as China and Russia if they fail to accept the status quo ante. I happen to believe that the days of such deceptive tactics are about to be over.

9. Meles has come to the realization that the days for him to play the game as an ally of the west and one who stands against Islamic terrorism is about to be over. It could be that Meles is terrified with the fact that it is his government which has instigated religiousbased conflicts. He may be terrified that the West would come to realize that Islamic fundamentalism has not roots in Ethiopia. As you all know, the EPDRF has tried to foment not only ethnic conflicts, but also religious ones. Their calculation is that, once such religious hostilities begin, Meles would attempt to convince the Western world that terrorism indeed exists in Ethiopia. Perhaps, the EPDRF leadership has come to the realization that they cannot dupe the world for so long and they would be denied of the financial assistance that they have been generously getting. Perhaps, the same autocrats are now terrified that the West would know that even his invasion of Somalia has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. Instead, it has more to do with Meles’s jailing of protesters, journalists, human rights workers and opposition leaders, to satisfy his insatiable appetite for hard currency using false pretexts- which ultimately will be used to buy weapons, which in turn could be used against the people they rule. Meles is terrified that he himself is an agent of terror for his brutality and oppression helps breed terrorism.

IV. The Evidence is In: Democracy has Triumphed over Tyranny

Many researchers have come to conclude that authoritarianism helps economic development is a myth. If anything, there is only a spurious correlation between autocracy and growth. Good governance begets development, not the other way round. Empirical evidence shows that democracies enjoy higher economic development compared to non-free ones. Most importantly, evidence shows that those countries which adopted democratic principles have outperformed those which followed the path of tyranny on a range of development indicators, such as life expectancy at birth, access to clean water and air, literacy rates, and infant mortality rates. They did this in part by doing away with special interest groups and rampant corruption.

The citizens of homeland, to be with their own loved ones, instead of becoming “super maids” as Ethiopians have become. By allowing their citizens to be part of the decision-making process, leaders who respected the rule of law have enabled their citizens to have their own stakes, thereby motivating them to work hard. Democratic countries were (are) able to enjoy peace, which has been a scarce commodity for Ethiopians for decades. As the 1998 Economics Nobel Prize Winner points out to all of us, hunger and starvation do not take place in countries which adopted democratic principles. In the age of globalization, good governance and democracy is the precondition for economic development. So, the evidence is in: democracy and the respect of the rule of law bring more prosperity to a country than authoritarianism. In fact, research shows that both the well-being and the survival of poor countries depend on people controlling their own destiny more than others. In fact, both empirical evidence and logic indicate that resource-scarce countries need better governance and policies than those endowed with relatively abundant resources.

For those of you who do not know Meles and the EPDRF, it may be quite puzzling to both hear and see why “leaders” of a political party that has been in power for 18 years continue to behave like mad dogs against their own people. One would expect such leaders, who have amassed enormous wealth, a good portion of it at the expense of the poor peasants, to be humbled by the Grace of God who allowed them to be in such a position, while at the same time, the people they rule are homeless and starving. One would expect the so-called “leaders” to work hard to deliver what their subjects yearn dearly, which is the respect of the rule of law and democracy. Instead of being proud of satisfying the demands of the people, Meles and his gang opted to frighten and terrorize them, in a crude and repugnant manner at that. Instead of being confident for delivering the goods and services that their subjects so desperately needed, they seem to tell the world that the peasants are rich and not starving. Instead of lifting up the moral and spirits of the people, they continue to intimidate them, putting them in concentration camps in drones, just because they exercised their rights and voted their conscience. Instead of being proud by protecting the territorial integrity of the country, which is one of the cardinal obligations of a government, they chose to willingly give away portions of the country’s territory to its traditional enemies. Instead of taking advantage of the modern telecommunication technology created elsewhere and try to catch up with the rapidly advancing world, they chose to suppress its usage and even use it to suppress the people they have ruled for too long. Such an act is not something to be proud of, unless the so-called leaders are so paranoid to the extent that they even fear their own shadows knowing the crimes they have committed against the poor people of Ethiopia.

V. WE HAVE NEWS FOR THE AUTOCRATS:

There is news for such paranoid, angry, prejudiced and desperate “leaders”- bad news for them, good news for everyone else: with the demise of communism, respecting the rule of law and freedom has triumphed over dictatorship. People refuse to be intimidated. They will continue demanding for the respect of the rule of law, freedom, human rights, and democracy. Despotic leader leave their victims with no choice. Even though they suppress the independent media with their new draconian press law, even though they intimidate opposition party leaders by arresting them with familiar tramped-up charges, even though you have made the existence and function of opposition parties practically useless, we will not rest until we gain our freedoms. We know such ridiculous propaganda and intimidation is an act of desperation. We know the world has changed and we will go along with the rest of the world that respects and practices democracy. Just like those people who have found their freedom, who have found the path of democracy, who found ways to discard authoritarianism, the Ethiopian people will find ours and do the same. We know, sooner or later, the entire world will be with them. We say, “No” to tyranny, intimidation, ethnocentric policies; “No” to nepotism; “No” to government instigated ethnic and religious strife; “No” to mass arrests and state terror. “Yes” to checks and balances, to the respect of the rule of law, to accountability, to equality, and to freedom!

The writer can be reached at seid.hassan@murraystate.edu

REFERENCES (in brief)

“Exposing a 50-Year-Old Myth”
http://www.opensocietypolicycenter.org/pub/doc_52/Chapter%20one-
The%20Democracy%20Advantage.pdf

Gerber, James, 2002. International Economics, Addison Wesley, Boston, MA.

World Bank, 1993. The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, Oxford University press, New York, NY.

Harvey, James Jr. July 2007. “Time Under Authoritarian Rule and Economic Growth” CORI
Working Paper No. 2007-02, to be found at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1010748.

CIA World Fact Book, to be found at: :https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/
geos/et.html

MULAT DEMEKE, FANTU GUTA, TADELE FEREDE
(Professors in the Department of Economics, Addis Ababa University): “Growth,
Employment, Poverty and Policies in Ethiopia: An empirical investigation”, Discussion
Paper 12, 2003. To be found at:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/recon/poverty/download/disc12.pdf

H.E. Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia
c/o H.E. Ambassador Kongit Sinegiorgis
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia to Austria
Wagramer Str.14/1/2
A-1220 Vienna
Austria
Fax: +43-1-710 21 71

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, is deeply concerned about the government’s continued failure to grant publishing licenses to the independent journalists Serkalem Fasil, Eskinder Nega, and Sisay Agena.

According to information before IPI, the three journalists applied for publishing licenses for two Amharic-language weeklies in September 2007. Although the Ministry of Information conceded that all legal requirements had been fulfilled, five months after their applications were filed, on 1 January 2008, the head of the Press Licensing & Permit Office, Fantahun Ares, informed them that their applications had been denied.

When the journalists requested a reason for the denial, Fasil, Nega and Agena were referred to Your Excellency’s office. To this date, no adequate explanation for the rejection of these applications has been provided.

Fasil, Nega and Agena, who were imprisoned during the aftermath of the 2005 elections and freed in 2007, should not be deprived, yet again, of their right to free expression. Their publications were intended to provide independent political coverage, much needed to foster an open media environment in your country, especially in consideration of the shut down of approximately 20 newspapers in 2005.

IPI therefore urges Your Excellency to do everything in your power to ensure that the publishing licenses are granted to the journalists.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Kudlak
Deputy Director