Seid
Hassan- Murray State University
June 21st, 2013
A. Introduction
The
Amharic version of the Voice of America (journalist Solomon Abate serving as
moderator) entertained a discussion on corruption which was broadcast on May 17
and 18, 2013. Participants included Messrs. Mulugeta Aragawi of Addis Ababa
University, Abebe Gutta (attorney at law in Addis Ababa), Berhanu Assefa (Ethical Education and Communication Affairs Director of
theFederal Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission-FEACC) and I. The first
two gentlemen who really knew the sources, extent and potential solution to the
rampant Ethiopian corruption politely provided their views, including the
approaches that the government has to take to fight the corruption that the
government has admitted to be rampant. As expected and is customary of the
members of the EPRDF, Mr. Berhanu Assefa of the FEACC was on the defensive and
mostly on the attack mode, instead of listening to the complaints and
suggestions of the two citizens. As
those who listened to the debate can easily attest, Mr. Assefa spent most of
his time talking about unrelated to the topic of discussion –yes, you guessed
it right: the same old and tireddouble digit growth rates that all EPRDFites
like to parrot each other ad nauseam. He also suggested that the current
decision to fight against corruption is for real and the arrest of Minister Melaku Fenta, director general
of the revenue and customs authority and his deputy Gebrewahed Woldegiorgis
along with several officials and
businessmen merchants should serve as proof and we
ought not to discourage it. I partially
agreed with Mr. Assefa’s suggestion in that all of us have to encourage the
fight against corruption, if indeed it is for real while at the same time
expressing my serious doubts.
I will perhaps address this issue (whether Prime
Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s government is both serious and capable of
fighting the rampant corruption in the country) with a separate short write-up.
Delay such a commentary also allow us to give the current authorities a little
more time and the benefits of doubt to show it to the world, as promised, that they
have ended embarked on fighting against the debilitating corruption in the
country. This and the next two (probably more) series of short commentaries instead
focus on my soon to be published research findings related to the foreign-aid–corruption-nexus
as applied to Ethiopia. These two forthcoming articles are included in the
upcoming Ethiopian e-Journal for Research
and Innovation Foresight-Vol.5, no.1-Special
issue on the Ethiopian Economy which incorporates seven professionally written
manuscripts. The contributors include
Professors Abu Girma Moges (two articles: one on
federalism and the second one on the extent of and the sham nature of
calculating and indexing of poverty in the country), Minga Negash (on the
peculiar nature of corporate governance in Ethiopia and the way forward),
Getachew Begashaw (on the effects of landlockedness), Zeleke Worku (on Traditional Financial Structures such as Iqub, etc.) and I (two
articles on the foreign aid-corruption nexus).
Both of my research articles are related but the first
one tries to exclusively focus on the humanitarian aid-corruption nexus (that
is, corruption when the TPLF was a rebel front) while the second one focuses on
the development aid-corruption nexus (that is, corruption after the TPLF seized
political power). They both are byproducts of many years of my extensive research
and fact documentations regarding the nature and causes of corruption in
Ethiopia. I expect readers of these articles to find the extensive literature,
testimonials and interviews that I consulted to be highly beneficial to them.
B.
The State Capture
Onset in Ethiopia: Humanitarian Aid and Corruption. Forthcoming: Ethiopian e-Journal
for Research and Innovation Foresight-Vol.5,
no.1-Special issue on the Ethiopian Economy.
1. Abstract: The first part of this paper shows that a substantial part of
the money that aid agencies gave to feed the
1984-5 Ethiopian famine
victims, including those raised by Band Aid
and Live Aid were siphoned
off by the Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) to buy military weapons. I also use newly
found evidences, interviews and testimonials accumulated over many years to
show that famine aid scamming by the TPLF had gone beyond using humanitarian aid to
purchase military weapons and feed the rebel Front’s red army. I show how
humanitarian aid, as a resource in the midst of extreme scarcity, has enriched
some quarters, fuelled corruption and intensified and prolonged conflicts among
the warring factions of Ethiopia and legitimized the rebel fronts’ operations.
Humanitarian aid lured the Fronts, particularly the TPLF, to parade hundreds of
thousands of peasants to Sudan, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of
them (due to overcrowding,
disease epidemics, lack of regular food supplies, poor water and sanitation
problems, and from being exposed to targets for bombing). The documents I examined, the
interviews that I conducted and the testimonials I have gathered over many
years indicate that the refugees were abused by the TPLF both during their trek
to the Ethio-Sudanese border which took 4-6 weeks and within the refugee camps.
According to some ex-TPLF veterans, (and their claims to be indirectly proved
by the written work of foreign nationals), a good portion of the humanitarian
food aid was not made available to the starving peasants of Tigray. Their
statements regarding this issue are indirectly corroborated by the field and
research work of foreign nationals. By all these three counts, according to
them, the TPLF has committed crimes against humanity (and, the International
Committee of the Red Cross –ICRC agrees with them on this front). The documents I examined and the
interviews and testimonials I gathered indicate that donors and aid agencies
knew that the Relief Society of Tigray (REST) was the flip-side of the same
coin- the TPLF and aid agency personnel knew a portion of the humanitarian aid that
they were providing was being diverted for military purposes by the Fronts,
indicating a violation of the principle of neutrality and impartiality on the
part of aid agencies. There are also indications suggesting that the
cross-border interventions by donors and aid agencies were against the
multilateral agreements such as the Loméconventions (Duffield and Prendergast,
1994). This shows that the provisions
and delivery of humanitarian aid have been used to violate and perhaps diminish
the sovereignty of
Ethiopia. Looked in a different way, a good portion of
the humanitarian aid provided by donor countries to the TPLF and other fronts
fighting the Derg regime was in part for the advancement of the diplomatic and
foreign policy goals as well as political and military tools of donor nations
and aid agencies. It may be for this
reason why they cared less about how humanitarian aid was spent or abused. The literature that I examined also provides reasons why the
abuse of humanitarian aid would be inevitable in conflict ridden countries such
as Ethiopia.The evidence gathered have
allowed me to inductively test one of my fundamental hypotheses: that
humanitarian aid resources were and still are the sources of predation and
capture in Ethiopia and that the culture of corruption and political malaise
that we observe in today’s Ethiopia is a byproduct of what the TPLF/EPRDF
learned and adopted when it was a rebel front and such a culture of corruption
was aided and abetted by humanitarian aid.
2.
Summary,
Implication and Conclusion (abridged)
The accounts of
several donor agency personnel and the testimonials of ex-TPLF combatants
indicate that humanitarian aid has showered the TPLF with more hard currency
than the $100 million it received from Band
Aid and similar activities. They include, for example, the millions of dollars
that REST and its “employees” and supporters received for providing their
services (transporting the donated food and related aid, as guides, etc.), from
selling of “excess” humanitarian aid into the Sudanese and Middle Eastern
markets, from scamming and defrauding humanitarian agencies such as the $500,000 that Mr. Max Peberdy of Christian Aid was seen passing to Mr. Araya and
others
and the $2 million the Australians gave in cash to purchase food from local
merchants, etc.) However, my
investigation is unable to determine the exact amount of money that the TPLF
made from selling humanitarian aid. Both the
fungibility of funds and the secretive nature of the Front also played and
would continue to play as huge obstacles in ascertaining if and how much
of those funds which have been allocated as described and as decided by the
Front’s leadership were actually implemented I am further convinced that no
one, including top leaders of the TPLF would be able to ascertain the exact
allocations, expenditures and conversions of humanitarian aid for military
purposes.
The second part of this article presented an
abridged version of both the theoretical and practical case for aid to be a
source for corruption and for prolonging conflicts among warring nations. I
examined documents and the information obtained from various credible voices already aired by
ex-TPLF veterans. I cross-examined previous testimonies provided by high level
donor aid officials and aid agencies’ personnel who were deeply involved in the
delivery of humanitarian aid at the time. I also sought out and investigated
documents written by journalists who happen to report the extent of donor aid
flow and to whom they were given. This led me to uncover one of the hard to
find non-classified CIA documents, thanks to Google’s search engine, which in
turn reinforced the claims made by donor aid officials and aid agency personnel
who attested that humanitarian aid
was indeed siphoned off to military uses by the TPLF. The examination of the facts also indicates
that both donor nations and aid agencies took a blind eye to the misuse and
diversion of humanitarian aid to military uses. Some attribute this to the fact
of channeling of humanitarian assistance along the Ethio-Sudanese border in the
1980s being partly political (see, Evil Days,
pp. 356-62, for example).
The cross-examination of the documents that I gathered
along with the testimonials of individuals also indicates that the TPLF
skillfully captured humanitarian aid resources, with full intent. The desire to
capture and use humanitarian aid resources motivated the Front to (in large
part forcefully) parade already weakened peasants to trek to Sudan, which led
to the death of tens of thousands of them (to the tune of 25,000 by some
humanitarian agencies’ estimates and calculations and a lot more by ex-TPLF
combatants) and to their increased suffering. This article has also presented the case in which the
provision of humanitarian aid could have the opposite and damaging (largely
unintended) effects on the recipient country and its people using Ethiopia as
an example. To the extent that the desire to access humanitarian aid
resources lured organized groups such as the TPLF to commit crimes against
humanity, and to the extent that these same resources have benefitted the
elites and have enabled the TPLF establish a highly corruptive and oligarchic
system that we observe in today’s Ethiopia, we conclude that humanitarian aid
resources were the basis for the onset of state capture that reigns supreme
currently in Ethiopia.
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