I'm really eager to hear from government supporters why Ethiopia is giving huge chunk of land to foreign investors for so little money? What is the benefit and long term impact for Ethiopia? Please explain to me because it is really hard to understand the reason behind.

fikre_hizb,

You must be a begging genius to understand this just as you must be a physics genius to understand Einstein's theory of relativity.

Meles is such a begging genius and expert on "quality aid" and understands this fully. Unless you too are a begging genius you cannot comprehend why a country that is begging for food aid gives away its fertile land that has "5% organic matter" and "can grow anything" at "giveaway prices" to a Saudi shiek to grow alfalfa to feed the fat cows for the even fatter Saudis.

I'm really eager to hear from government supporters why Ethiopia is giving huges chunk of land that to foreign investors for so little money? What is the benefit and long term impact for Ethiopia? Please explain to me because it is really hard to understand the reason behind.

Much of the Weyane foreign policy can be explained in terms of "internationalizing their problems." The idea is if anything happens to Weyane, they want other countries to get involved on their side.

The land issue is very sensitive for two reasons, one Ethiopia is over populated and the people would like to have that land. Second, many "uneducated" ethiopians have atavistic relationship to the land which clearly borders chauvinism. Weyane knows sooner or later the only guranteer of safety for these land grabs is it and it self. Hence the companies will rely on it for their security and through them Weyane can count on help from such global powers as India.

It really is not too complicated. But if you are stupid it could look almost mystifying.

I'm really eager to hear from government supporters why Ethiopia is giving huge chunk of land to foreign investors for so little money? What is the benefit and long term impact for Ethiopia? Please explain to me because it is really hard to understand the reason behind.

The locals hate farming, by the law of use it or lose it, they are losing the land to those who love farming.

Since you hate to think, parts of your brain should be also parceled out to someone who can use it.

The locals hate farming, by the law of use it or lose it, they are losing the land to those who love farming.

Arundhati Roy, an internationally recognized Indian novelist, writer and activist, on her recent interview with Al-Jazeera TV she said the following about the land-grab in India which I thought has a striking similarity to the the situation in Southern Ethiopia.

"....Scholars who've studied the effects of land-grab on indigenous people have found out that when a population is being prepared to be wiped off the map... it is done in a manner similar to what the German Nazis used to call uberzahligen Essern, which means superfluous eaters -- people who are not required. So it's important to either demonize them or to make them completely faceless, so that when you slaughter them or when you lay siege to them and they're starving and malnourished, and when they disappear you don't notice..... so that the rest of the population can live with their consciences clear.

That's what's happening in Ethiopia today. Woyanes have created a man-made famine by expelling farmers from their ancestral lands, and devised the so-called "terrorism laws" trying to dehumanize the Ethiopian people before carrying out a genocide. The indigenous people in Southern Ethiopia cannot conduct a peaceful struggle because such struggle is a performance that requires an audience. In the Southern regions there's no audience. How do hungry people go on a hunger strike ? How do dirt poor people who don't pay taxes carry out civil disobedience ? The only option available to them to survive is to take up arms and conduct a liberation struggle. A civil war.

You can watch the excellent interview here......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTS9gHC ... re=related

Based Meles prospective the reason he allowed Ethiopian lands in the hand of foreigners are:

1. Meles and Azeb think that if they can lease more lands to foreigners, the more hard currency will come to Ethiopia and Meles and Azeb can convert the EFFORT looted money (Birr) to foreign currency and ship them easily via their installed second hand bridge Al Amoud as his own money.

2. If Meles lease more virgin fertile lands to different many yet very powerful countries around the world, the better chance Meles will have to stay in power guarded by those countries against any other opposition Ethiopians in order to milk Ethiopia for years to come.

Based Ethiopian prospective:

1. You will see more and more people displaced from their ancestral lands and migrating to near by cities and become homeless and beggars for year to come. The real effect will not be seen at least five years from now. The real effect will swallow Ethiopian major cities by displaced migrant from the leased lands and regions.

2. The environment will be degrading by the intensive pesticide to the land and water around the surrounding areas. The land grabbers will not stop grabbing and expanding their farming lands from the smaller defenseless local farmers they will take over part of Ethiopia and all Ethiopians will be the slave of foreigners watching vast green farming land but they can not touch it, smell it nor feed their families from the farming.

I wonder what our brave ancestors would say if they see what is happing by this midget evil man???

King Yohannes said quote “I am a greedy person and I will not allow the Egyptian prisoners to leave Ethiopia with out dusting their shoes to make sure they do not cary Ethiopian soil let alone to take Ethiopia lands”

Read what the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy, said about land-grab in her native India.....

The Indian Government has made promises to the Corporations and here ‘creating a good investment climate’ means nothing but a war against the poor. But India is in a peculiar position. Unlike Western countries which were developing democracy at home while committing genocide in their colonies in order to extract raw materials to feed their industry, India today, which markets itself as the worlds’ largest democracy is having to colonize it’s own nether regions, to eat its own limbs. But the limbs are refusing to be eaten.

The present government is headed by stooges of the IMF and the corporate world. The Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy, Mr Manmohan Singh has never won an election in his life. The Home Minister P.Chidambaram is a corporate lawyer who has represented many major mining corporations and also the infamous Enron. He has said that he visualizes 80% of the Indian population living in cities. This would mean social engineering on a scale that no governmet has ever dreamt of. Roughly moving about 500 million people off their lands. It can only be done if India turns into a military/police state.

But even as the rural poor are being displaced from their lands at an unprecedented pace, when they arrive in the cities, living in slums and shanty towns, forming the bulk of the virtually slave labour that builds the new, glittering cities, when their work is done they are driven out of the cities too. We have a population of 800 million people living on less than half a dollar a day. They are what the Nazis used to call “superfluous eaters”. The government wants to be rid off them.
http://ewwaunel.wordpress.com/2010/07/0 ... only-hope/

[b][size=150][color=#FF0000]Based Meles prospective the reason he allowed Ethiopian lands in the hand of foreigners are:

1. Meles and Azeb think that if they can lease more lands to foreigners, the more hard currency will come to Ethiopia and Meles and Azeb can convert the EFFORT looted money (Birr) to foreign currency and ship them easily via their installed second hand bridge Al Amoud as his own money.

False and stupid.

First of all the land that is sold is sold 1 $ a hectare or less. And the crop the companies produce is neither taxed nor is it assumed to be used within "Ethiopia." It will hardly produce any hard currency whatsoever.

2. If Meles lease more virgin fertile lands to different many yet very powerful countries around the world, the better chance Meles will have to stay in power guarded by those countries against any other opposition Ethiopians in order to milk Ethiopia for years to come.

THIS IS THE ONLY AND MAIN REASON FOR THE LAND GRAB. IT IS TO GURANTEE THE CONTINUATION OF THE WEYANE REGIME WITH THE HELP OF FOREIGNERS WHO WOULD HAVE A STAKE IN ITS SURVIVAL.

Government supporters,

guys, I'm still eager to hear any plausible explanation from you government supporters. Any explanation???? I'm still waiting. And as an Ethiopian, you should be concerned with this huge land grab and should ask your government you support for explanation. This is a serious issue beyond any party affiliation.

Comformist,

If farming is the real reason behind it, why not first encourage Ethiopian businesses to enter into the farming industry? There was virtually no attempt or encouragement from the government side to encourage local businesses to enter into the farming business for the last 20 years. I think agriculture and food self-sufficiency is one of the most neglected issues for the last 20 years. The exception being of course cash crops. How many times have the opposition, IMF, the world bank and the donor community asked the government to change the land policy just to encourage the business community to have access to farming land? And all their request were met by fierce resistance by the government. So I don't think farming alone can explain the reason behind such huge land grab policy. There must be something else.

siren66 and Halafi,

You both raised one interesting aspect i.e. by implementing this huge land grab, the government may feel more secure to involve many more countries that will have a stake in Ethiopia and are willing to support the government just to protect their interests. It is indeed an interesting idea but you have to widen your idea and give me also some possible scenarios in which this kind of calculation may actually work. What can Indians do to protect the government in the face of an internal revolt or a coup for example? Give me some examples please.

Halafi,

though siren66 dismissed it, the money part, which you raised may be one of the most driving force behind the land grab. It may also be that Meles & Co. have stokes and shares in these companies outside Ethiopia, which may explain the almost non existent very cheap price and the very law tax. If Meles & Co. have stokes and shares in these companies outside of Ethiopia, it will be also a safe income generator even if they live outside of Ethiopia in the future. But it is still a speculation and must be backed up by some facts.