With a disturbing mix of potency and pathos, Ethiopia has again stuck out the begging bowl. The euphemistically labelled Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) said this week that about 12,5-million Ethiopians now need foreign food aid to survive.
This is a 10% rise since Ethiopia last cried for help for its 67-million people.
At a conference in the plush African Union headquarters located in the capital Addis Ababa this week, Dr Demissie Tadesse, Ethiopia’s Deputy Health Minister, reminded the world that 70% of Ethiopia’s population did not have access to clean water and four-fifths had no access to safe sanitation. Only 50% of the girls in the country were enrolled in primary schools, while vaccinations reached about half of the population.
Things must be worse than realised at first. These official admissions of fundamental weakness run counter to the current stream of government statements.
In an interview in the capital earlier this month, Deputy Foreign Minister Tekede Alemu admitted that Ethiopia had a little more than a decade to break its dependency on foreign aid if it wanted to survive as a state.
“We cannot continue with droughts and begging for assistance. We have to break this cycle of dependence. The only way of doing this is with economic development.
“Our major objective is poverty reduction through economic development,” he said. “And development is inextricably linked with stability.”
Alemu said this fixation with stability explained Ethiopia’s dealings with its neighbours and with the United States.
“It is why we greatly appreciate the stability achieved in neighbouring Somaliland. It is why we are determined not to return to war with Eritrea.
“Egypt helped Eritrea in the war against us. Egypt believes that poverty and instability in Ethiopia is in its interest because if Ethiopia succeeds it might have ideas about the Nile — most of which rises in Ethiopia before it becomes the life source of Egypt.
“We are, however, looking for a win-win situation with Egypt. We will never do anything to undermine Egypt’s national security,” Alemu said.
“Uniquely, Ethiopia shares a border with every country in the sub-region. We know the importance of keeping good neighbours. The determination to achieve development above all else is also why we supported the US in its war against Iraq.
“Sometimes you have to do what is best for the national interest and then square it up with your own conscience in the privacy of your bed at night.”
Ethiopian leaders must be used to guilt under the quilt when it comes to dealing with Uncle Sam. They bucked the African trend by supporting the proposed US peacekeeping force for the continent in 1997.
They sided with the US in opposing a second term for Egyptian Boutros Boutros Gali as United Nations secretary general. They openly supported the US in the 1991 Gulf War.
The Ethiopians helped topple Khartoum’s National Islamic Front Government, presumably seeking US and Israeli support against Sudan.
To exercise regional muscle, Ethiopia has to spend a colossal 40% of its budget on military might — hardly a compelling point with the donor community.
In the short term, however, Ethiopia is ingratiating itself with Africa by deploying four companies of men to the peacekeeping force in Burundi.
“This is about our duty as Africans,” said Alemu. “The Great Lakes are not close enough to be an immediate stability consideration.”
Not surprisingly the US tops the list of countries providing cash and expertise to Ethiopia. Earlier this month Sweden signed a $215-million grant package with Ethiopia, the largest it has made in 50 years.
It also took the unprecedented step of warning that it would have to look at this again if Ethiopia went back to war with Eritrea.
This kind of candour unsettles Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who is taking increasing flak for his autocratic style.
His political opponents know that the most telling blows will be delivered in Washington. And it was in the House international relations committee of the US Congress earlier this month that Professor Mesfin Wolde-Mariam delivered his roundhouse.
Wolde-Mariam, chairperson of the Ethiopia Human Rights Council, blames his country’s autocratic leaders, and not the weather, for the famines he has been studying for the past 15 years.
“Other countries have droughts, but they do not become famines.”
The Harvard professor said Zenawi’s government was worse than Emperor Haile Selassi and the dictator Mengistu Haile-Mariam.
The Marxist regime had taken away the land and Zenawi’s government only allowed its supporters to operate small, unviable plots.
It extorted payments and taxes on pain of prison and took the able-bodied young men into military service.
Wolde-Mariam argues that Ethiopia’s salvation does not lie simply in economic development but in the acceptance of the socio-economic origin of famine.
This intellectual debate rages as Ethiopians hunger for an answer.