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 Addis Ababa
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 Ethiopia
B. The State Capture Onset
in Ethiopia
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 Lomé conventions (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 by-product 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 fungibles 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 channelling 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 skilfully 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
