By Eskinder Nega, New York Times Op-Ed ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — I AM jailed, with around 200 other inmates, in a wide hall that looks like a warehouse. For all of us, there are only three toilets. Most of the inmates sleep on the floor, which has never been swept. About 1,000 prisoners share the small open space here at Kaliti Prison. One can guess our fate if a communicable disease breaks out.
I was arrested in September 2011 and detained for nine months before I was found guilty in June 2012 under Ethiopia’s overly broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which ostensibly covers the “planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt” of terrorist acts. In reality, the law has been used as a pretext to detain journalists who criticize the government. Last July, I was sentenced to 18 years in prison. I’ve never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn’t reform. The state’s main evidence against me was a YouTube video of me, saying this at a public meeting. I also dared to question the government’s ludicrous claim that jailed journalists were terrorists. Under the previous regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, I was detained. So was my wife, Serkalem Fasil. She gave birth to our son in prison in 2005. (She was released in 2007.) Our newspapers were shut down under laws that claim to fight terrorism but really just muzzle the press. We need the United States to speak out. In the long march of history, at least two poles of attraction and antagonism have been the norm in world politics. Rarely has only one nation carried the burden of leadership. The unipolar world of the 21st century, dominated for the past two decades by the United States, is a historical anomaly. And given America’s role, it bears a responsibility to defend democracy and speak out against those nations that trample it. Read the full story on New York Times
The simplest definition of state corruption is the self-enrichment of government officials through the use of the power bestowed on them and state mechanism. In Ethiopia, the TPLF is a mafia type gang that is running its own Mafiosi economic empire, not the country as a legitimate caring government.
The country itself is up for sale, as long as there are buyers out there. That is why people in Gambella were to evicted and their land sold to Indian and Arab, Turkish, Pakistani Billionaires. Recently, the Ethiopian Government refused to cooperate with the World Bank when it was asked to investigate whether the World Bank violated its own policies by funding, in which thousands of people were allegedly relocated to make way for agricultural investors. The British Government actually knowingly or unknowingly funded a programme that evicted the tribes of the Lower Omo Valley in south west Ethiopia – chief among them the Mursi, the Nyangatom, the Bodi and the Daasanach, who depend on a combination of flood retreat cultivation on the banks of the Omo River, rain fed cultivation further back from the river, and cattle on the grass plains, again to make way for foreign agricultural investors. The land of the Amaras, Afars, Oromos and all over the country is up for a grab. Even Egypt secured herself 20, 000 acres of farmland. To imagine this, one acre is about 1 football stadium field. The money from the sale of land, in hard currency goes straight either to the pockets of individuals of those in powers or to the coffers of regime’s private money making institutions, such as the “The Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray”, EFFORT.
Ethiopia is full of ironies. Before the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) became the “Government”, it was separatist rebel force, just like that of Eritrean Liberation Front with the aim of building the Future Republic of Tigray (dream map shown below). After successfully overthrowing the military regime of Lt Col. Mengistu Hailemariam, guerrilla leaders of TPLF helped Eritrea gain its independence but delayed their own, to finish some unfinished task of dismantling Ethiopia. Then they saw, the opportunity to amass any wealth from the South and move up to the North, to prosper their future Republic of Tigray, their ultimate goal. They never felt belongingness to Ethiopia. The mother of all ironies is that they are ruling the country and the people they hated so much at gun point. Therefore, expecting respect for human right from such a bunch of separatists is like expecting dove from a serpent’s egg. What would the British feels, if IRA end up being in charge of the Westminster to decide on the future of The United Kingdom? I leave that to your imagination.
Then another irony follows. Throughout the history of mankind, governments fought with neighbouring countries to expand their territories, but the government of Ethiopia fights with its own people to give land away to anybody outsider as long as the other party pays. The boarder land with the Sudan, including the birth Place of Emperor Theodros, whose son Prince Alemayehu Theodros’s body is lying right here in Britain at Windsor Castle has been given to the Sudanese after forcefully evicting the inhabitants, under gunpoint. That was in return of the Sudanese assistance while they were fighting the previous regime. A fertile farmland had to be taken away from Ethiopian farmers and given to a neighbouring country. When the Sudanese military came to take over the land, the farmers stood up to protect their property, fighting back bravely. However, their own government attacked them from behind in defence of the alien Sudanese military.
More than half of Ethiopia’s economy belongs to EFFORT, the Private property of Tigrian People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). From the remaining 50%, about 25% belongs to the Sheik Al Amoudi, an Ethiopian born Saudi Billionaire, who does business with them, probably stashing millions of dollars away for them in foreign banks. Then about 12.5% belongs to its satellite parties, while only 12:5% belongs to rest of 90 million people. When the regime declares the fast growing economy of the country, one should understand that actually it is meant the fast bulging pocket of the ruling officials, and not the people at all. Our people are poorer than ever. The number of starving has quadrupled. Millions live on the street. The regime itself estimates that “150,000 children live on the streets in Ethiopia, around. 60,000 in Addis Ababa, many arriving from rural areas looking for work”.
Why are we so poor?
Looking at United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Index, we find Ethiopia at 174 out 187, just ahead of 13 countries from the bottom of the table. Examining World Economic Forum’s Global competitive report, we find Ethiopia at 118 out of 133. Transparency International gives 33 points at Corruption Perception Index. The highest is awarded to New Zealand, Finland and Denmark, which is at 90. United Kingdom scores 74, along with Japan, ahead of United States. The lowest score 8, awarded to Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan. Awarding Ethiopia 33 points out of 90 is totally wrong. I would have put the figure at 2, and that is I if I am too generous in marking. “The country has also lost close to 12 billion dollars since 2000 to illicit financial outflows, according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), whose statistics are based on official data provided by the Ethiopian government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)”. The State Corruption index of Ethiopia could have been lower than that of the level of Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan, but the corruption is concealed, because one would never know where the “government” official activities ends and their business activities start. EFFORT is a business as well as the “Government”.
When it comes to Natural resources, Ethiopia is not poor at all. We have ample water resources, for example. 8/7th of the Water that passes through the Nile Delta of Egypt comes from Ethiopian Highlands. We have mighty rivers everywhere. Baro, Tekeze, Wabi Shebele, Gibe, Awash, … you name it, are some, not to mention lakes everywhere. Truly speaking, Ethiopia is the water bed of Africa. But we suffer from draught and lack of clean drinking waters.
We have Gold, Precious stones but they all belong either to EFFORT or Al Amoudi. We have unexploited oil reserves, that could turn Ethiopia into the economic power of Sub-Saharan Africa, but we don’t have a responsible government that cares for the people. We have so many fertile lands which would have been able not just feed Ethiopia, but the entire Africa. Given her potential agricultural resources, Ethiopia could easily become the bread-basket of the continent of Africa. If you had followed a BBC Television Programme “From Pole To Pole” by Michael Palin, you would truly find why he called Ethiopia the Garden of Eden. From Egypt to the Sudan, it is all desert land. He found life in Ethiopia.
Then what went wrong? To begin with, we have had wars and battles throughout our history. Most of our productive times have been wasted fighting to ward off invaders. Our history tells us that we fought for more than 100 years against the invading Turks, not to mention Italians and other colonialists from Europe. When we are not fighting the invaders then we find ourselves fighting each other as if war was a kind of our national sport. That is all to control power, unlike the incumbent ones, to break up the country. This one is the worst government Ethiopia had ever had. They stand to serve the interest of other countries, rather than their own. One way or another, wars do cost too much and I am not the one to tell you how much it does. You know it firsthand. War on terrorism is mother of all ironies of Ethiopia. The TPLF itself is a terrorist organisation. It is currently bent on terrorising its own people.
To add insult on injury, then there is this occasional draught that used to come every 10 years. We heavily depend on rain water, rather than using the irrigation technology. Have we had peace in the country, even without touching the River Nile, we could have taken out as much water as we wanted for agriculture from the rest of the rivers for irrigation purpose, without igniting the fury of the powerful neighbours and use it to cultivate more than enough crops. The Nile is a controversial river. Whether we like it or not, it may ignite war anytime between Ethiopia and Egypt, if not The Sudan. All the Egyptian Military Might exists, not for anything else, but only one purpose. That is the safeguarding of the free flow of The Nile River. We know that. They know we know that too. That is why Egypt works day and night so that there would be no peace time in Ethiopia.
Women from Ethiopia’s South Omo Valley are seen here dancing. They are also severely beaten as part of a coming of age ceremony that can be witnessed and photographed by wealthy tourists. Photograph by: Andrew Renton, Vancouver Sun
Bored with the usual round of museums, art galleries, cathedrals, temples or world heritage sites and with appetites whetted by documentaries, rich travellers are looking for authenticity.
Their desires have spawned a number of discrete and sometimes disturbing niche markets.
There are the adventurers. Images of tourists lined up to summit Everest, for example, are now almost as familiar as the images of their discarded oxygen bottles strewn at the Nepalese mountain’s base.
There’s poverty tourism (a.k.a. poor-ism or slum tourism) where seeing the living conditions of the desperately poor can be as life changing for the viewer as it is exploitative of the viewed.
There’s volun-tourism, where you pay to work for non-profit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.
In Lac-Mégantic, Que., grieving people have come face-to-face with disaster tourists snapping photos of what and who has been left behind after the tragic and devastating train derailment and explosion.
And there’s the kind I discovered reading the weekend travel section of The Sun that’s perhaps best described as citizen-anthropologist trips. They’re cloaked as adventure tourism and wrapped in a self-congratulatory tolerance for other people’s traditions and customs.
In this case, it was the ritualized abuse of Hamer women in Ethiopia’s South Omo Valley.
Vancouver-based travel writer Andrew Renton described a three-day ceremony marking a young man’s coming of age that culminates with girls and women getting beaten and lashed so badly with sticks that they all bear the scars.
He recounts buying medication for one girl whose wounds had turned septic, “but she is still not happy” because the next day she was to be beaten again as part of her brother’s initiation ceremony.
The account is chilling.
“I find my girl and turn her around. Her eyes are glazed. Her back is running with blood. I’m told she took all the medication in preparation for today’s event.”
The italics are mine; the paternalistic possessive pronoun is Renton’s even though he viewed and recounted the beating of girls and women — black, African girls and women — with detachment.
His account and others describe the women and girls as being either drunk, drugged or in a trance during the beatings, which often go on for more than an hour.
No photos of the beatings of the scarred and bloodied backs of the girls and women were published in the paper. That would, no doubt, ruin the happy tourism buzz.
And, make no mistake, the writer wasn’t a lone, plucky adventurer who serendipitously happened upon this ritual during his nine days of playing citizen-anthropologist.
One photo shows nine other white, camera-toting tourists in the half-circle around the ceremony.
Think about it. What they witnessed would be criminal assault in Canada and most countries and probably even Ethiopia.
The story ended with this jaunty, verbal wave: “Whether you agree with the customs or not, the people and their traditions are real.”
This glib cultural relativism begs fundamental questions.
Is it morally right to do nothing when another person or even an animal is being beaten so badly that they’re left bleeding and scarred?
Are rural Ethiopian women and girls (or any others in the developing world) not entitled to the same rights and protections as Canadians?
The coming-of-age ritual may well be an ancient one. But it’s one of the many reasons that Ethiopia is one of the worst countries to be a girl or a woman, ranking 173 out of 187 countries when it comes to gender inequality.
Another old custom/tradition in Ethiopian herding societies is the most extreme form of female genital mutilation, which entails the removal of all external genitalia.
The United Nations unanimously passed a resolution last December calling for a global ban on the practice, which UNICEF says is rampant in Ethiopia’s rural areas even though it has been outlawed.
So far, there are no reports of this ritual being carried out in front of tourists.
But in a country so desperately poor, who’s to say what people may be willing to do for money?
For the writer’s brief look at real life in the South Omo Valley, he paid nearly 10 times what the average Ethiopian earns in a year. His $3,300 “covered absolutely everything for nine days except alcohol.”
It’s a fair bet that very little of what the gawking travel writer and other tourists paid to witness the abuse will trickle down to girls like the poor, wretched one described in the article.
Yet, for the Ethiopian herders living at the desperate margins even a pittance can make a difference.
The troubling question is what kind of difference?
If rich Westerners pay high prices and set aside their own cultural values to watch ritualized abuse, it’s possible that rather than being impartial observers their very presence exacerbates and may even perpetuate it.
የተባበሩት መንግስታት ድርጅት አለምአቀፋዊ የሰብዓዊ መብቶች ድንጋጌ አንቀጽ ዘጠኝ፤ አንቀጽ አስርና አንቀጽ አስራ አንድ የማንኛዉም አገር ዜጋ ያለ አግባብ መታሰር እንደሌለበት፤ በወንጀል ተጠርጥሮ የሚታሰር የማንም አገር ዜጋ በአስቸኳይ ፍርድ ቤት መቅረብ እንዳለበትና የፍርድ ቤቱ ሂደት አስከተፈጸመ ድርስ ደግሞ የተጠርጣሪዉ ዜጋ ንጽህና የተረጋገጠ መሆን እንዳለበት ይደነግጋል። በዚሁ የተመድ አለምአቀፋዊ ሰብዓዊ መብቶች ጥበቃ ድንጋጌ ሰነድ ላይ ተመስርቶ የተጻፈዉ የ1994ቱ የኢትዮጵያ ህገመንግሰት አንቀጽ 17 ንዑስ አንቀጽ ሁለት ደግሞ ማንም ዜጋ ያለ አግባብ መታሰር እንደሌለበት፤ ማንም ዜጋ ከፍርድ ቤት ትዕዛዝ ዉጭ መታሰር እንደሌለበትና በፍርድ ቤት ትዕዛዝ የታሰረ ዜጋም ቢሆን በአስቸኳይ ፍርድ ቤት መቅረብ እንዳለበት በግልጽ ይደነግጋል። ኢትዮጵያ ደግሞ የተመድ የሰብዓዊ መብቶች ድንጋጌ ያረቀቀችና ያጸደቀች አገር ብቻ ሳትሆን ከሃምሳ አንዱ የተመድ መስራች አገሮች ዉስጥ አንዷ ናት።
