By Muktar Omer
On August 05, 2011 a joint undercover investigation by BBC Newsnight and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism presented evidence that the Ethiopia’s current regime is using billions of dollars of development aid as a tool for political oppression. Here is the full transcript of the programme: Ethiopia using aid as a weapon of repression. This piece is written in reaction to this report.
The Ambassador’s refutations
By itself, foolishness is not exactly a crime. Provided it goes camel-herding into the sandy jungles of Wardheer. Provided it tills fertile land with brute force. And provided it knows its location and confines. It is not felonious, provided it remains profoundly modest, silent even. With such deportment, it could in fact pass for wisdom. It is when it yells, that it becomes insufferable. It is when it wears the shameless garb of impudence, that it becomes nauseating. Abdirashid Dulane Rafle’s, Deputy Head of Ethiopia’s mission in UK, refutations of the BBC’s report ripped open his hairy head to reveal to the world its penny-worth innards.
It didn’t add any substance, even by way of sensible falsehood, to the discourse. His redundant ‘this allegation is a rehash of old lies’ is little more than a courtesy bow by a women whose lower garment accidentally snapped before a watching gallery. No one is invoking standards of the nunnery to judge Abdirashid. We are simply asking him to be properly qualified for what he has voluntarily chosen to do in his little life, namely to be the devil’s advocate. Did he produce a single hole in the BBC report? No. Does he hear the weeping widows? Does he see the orphaned sons spilling sob-tales in refugee camps?
This is to let off some steam, and to curse the man who is convicting his own mother.
Aid as a weapon of oppression
That Meles Zenawi is using the billions of dollars Western donors are giving his regime to oppress political opponents is without doubt. That Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) rule emanates from the barrel of the gun is, again, beyond gainsay. Sired by the gun, it is neither surprising nor unexpected that the TPLF seeks to gain by forgery legitimating governance credentials, ethos and language through the gun and by starving those who refuse to vote for it. What is surprising is the West’s pretense that it doesn’t know this.
Anna Gomes, the Head of EU observer mission, gathered first-hand information during the 2005 bloody Ethiopian elections and is today touring European capitals to tell what she witnessed to the listening. Human Rights Watch, ICRC, NGOs and the UN have been issuing series of reports about the political oppression, aid misuse and torture in Ethiopia. The US, through its annual State Department reports, spoke again and again of extrajudicial killings, unlawful arrests, and crackdown on the media and civil society in Ethiopia.
So, why would Stephen O’Brien, the UK International Development Minister, say “we take all allegations of human rights abuses extremely seriously and raise them immediately with the relevant authorities including the Ethiopian Government, with whom we have a candid relationship. Where there is evidence, we take firm and decisive action.” Where is the evidence they have acted on previous reports by all the global institutions I lined up above and reputable media organizations such as the New York Times?”
It is a matter of historical fact that Western powers shore up dictators who acquiesce to the demands of prescriptive, overweening imperialists. Western aid in Ethiopia is not helping poor people. It is prolonging the misery of hapless Oromo civillians and Amhara dissidents. It is sponsoring ethnic cleansing in the Somali region. The veil of hypocritical ‘humanitarian’ decency needs to be perforated and with it the West’s pretense to ethical punctiliousness. Whose money is used to unleash the ‘Liyu’ Police – a Janjaweed-type murderous militia, onto the Somali people in Ethiopia? What the BBC reported about Somali region is the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of civilians are killed each year by Zenawi’s military and paramilitary. Did the BBC report the gruesome story of women in Fiiq Zone, whose private parts charred after pepper was stuffed inside their reproductive organs?
Must the BBC tell for the World to notice?
Tells of atrocities are told by refugees that escape Ethiopia on a daily basis. Should the world ignore these cries for help and continue to sponsor a killer regime? Must the BBC and white journalists from the cold continent that finds anorexia sexy tell it, for the world community to notice the horror stories told every day by victims of Meles Zenawi’s violent regime? Should Britain and the West issue statements of ‘concern’ only when such snapshot reports come out? The answer to all of these questions is no.
It is time the West gives a serious rethink to its policy towards the Ethiopian regime. The West should realize they are part to the crime against the people of Ethiopia. And in the end, intentions are not what count. They may claim to have the best of intentions for the people of Ethiopia, but if their money is used to finance rapists and torturers, they should not think poor and vulnerable Ethiopians are ungrateful lot when the victims curse the ‘aid’ givers.
In Somali Region of Ethiopia, a people to whom avenues to peaceful protest, assembly, and expression are closed, took up arms against an unjust, oppressive system. It is the only choice they are left with. If the West is interested in peace and development, let them stop funding the abusive regime of Meles Zenawi.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])