Oxfam, an international NGO, has launched a massive petition drive demanding Starbucks to allow the government of Ethiopia trademark its famous coffee bean names–Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe. Starbucks then has to pay a huge amount of money in royalty fees to the government of Ethiopia for branding these names.
Oxfam argues that royalty fees from the trademark, estimated to be over $80 million per year, would go to the coffee bean growers–the poor farmers.
This is far from the truth. Most of the money would be going to close family members of Meles Zenawi and Sheik Al Amoudi who control much of the country’s agricultural, mining, transportation and other industries. The rest would go to the Federal Police and the Agazi, Meles Zenawi’s private militia.
Oxfam cannot claim to be ignorant of the fact that the Ethiopian dictatorship of Meles Zenawi is one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Just recently, when the auditor general of Ethiopia reported the misappropriation and disappearance of billions of dollars from the government’s treasury, Meles fired him, even though only the parliament has the authority to hire or fire the federal auditor.
Ethiopian farmers are poor and will stay poor as long as the parasitic dictatorship continues to deny their democratic and civil rights, brutalize them when they protest, and divide them along ethnic and religious lines, instigating communal conflicts, and spend most of the country’s resources on military, and not on education and other social services.
Oxfam’s stated goal is “to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice.” We would like to remind Oxfam that the main source of poverty, suffering and injustice in Ethiopia is not Starbucks. It is the brutal dictatorship of Meles Zenawi. Oxfam has yet to say any thing about the brutal treatment of poor farmers, and the people of Ethiopia, in general, by the ruling Marxist junta.
Starbucks deserves credit for giving Ethiopia’s coffee the prominence it deserves in the world market. Ethiopians around the world are proud to see the names Sidamo, Harar, and Yirgacheffe in Starbucks coffee shops around the world.
Oxfam, and others who are campaigning against Starbucks, need to explain what if the coffee giant removes these names from its shops, instead of paying the $80 million, which goes to Meles Zenawi’s pocket? How would the poor farmers benefit from that?
Ethiopian Review encourages Oxfam to stand up for the poor farmers in Ethiopia who are forced to buy environmentally unsafe fertilizers from companies that are owned by families and friends of Meles Zenawi; poor farmers who have been denied their voting rights; poor farmers who are denied access to education, health, and other services.