Is this the most farcical use of taxpayers' money
ever: Ethiopian gets legal aid from UK - to sue us for giving aid to... Ethiopia
- The farmer claims aid is funding a despotic
one-party state in his country
- Alleges regime is forcing thousands from their
land using murder and rape
- Prime Minister David Cameron says donations are a
mark of compassion
- If farmer is successful, Ministers might have to
review overseas donations
An Ethiopian farmer has been given legal aid in the UK to sue Britain – because he claims millions of pounds sent by the UK to his country is supporting a brutal regime that has ruined his life. He says UK taxpayers’ money – £1.3 billion over the five years of the coalition Government – is funding a despotic one-party state in his country that is forcing thousands of villagers such as him from their land using murder, torture and rape.
The landmark case is highly embarrassing for
the Government, which has poured vast amounts of extra cash into foreign aid
despite belt-tightening austerity measures at home.
Prime Minister David Cameron claims the
donations are a mark of Britain’s compassion. But the farmer – whose case
is set to cost tens of thousands of pounds – argues that huge sums handed
to Ethiopia are breaching the Department for International Development’s (DFID)
own human rights rules.
He accuses the Government of devastating
the lives of some of the world’s poorest people rather than fulfilling promises
to help them. The case comes amid growing global concern over Western aid
propping up corrupt and repressive regimes.
If the farmer is successful, Ministers
might have to review major donations to other nations accused of atrocities,
such as Pakistan and Rwanda – and it could open up Britain to compensation
claims from around the world.
Ethiopia, a key ally in the West’s war on
terror, is the biggest recipient of British aid, despite repeated claims
from human rights groups that the cash is used to crush opposition.
DFID was served papers last month by
lawyers acting on behalf of ‘Mr O’, a 33-year-old forced to abandon his family
and flee to a refugee camp in Kenya after being beaten and tortured for trying
to protect his farm.
He is not seeking compensation but to
challenge the Government’s approach to aid. His name is being withheld to
protect his wife and six children who remain in Ethiopia.
‘My client’s life has been shattered by
what has happened,’ said Rosa Curling, the lawyer handling the case. ‘It goes
entirely against what our aid purports to stand for.’
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Mr O’s family was caught in controversial
‘villagisation’ programmes. Under the schemes, four million people living in
areas opposed to an autocratic government dominated by men from the north of
the country are being forced from lucrative land into new villages.
Their land has been sold to foreign
investors or given to Ethiopians with government connections.
People resisting the soldiers driving them
from their farms and homes at gunpoint have been routinely beaten, raped,
jailed, tortured or killed.
Exodus: The farmer claims villagers are
being attacked by troops driving them from their land
‘Why is the West, especially the UK, giving
so much money to the Ethiopian government when it is committing atrocities on
my people?’ asked Mr O when we met last year.
His London-based lawyers argue that DFID is
meant to ensure recipients of British aid do not violate human rights, and they
have failed to properly investigate the complaints.
Human Rights Watch has issued several
scathing reports highlighting the impact of villagisation and showing how
Ethiopia misuses aid for political purposes, such as diverting food and
seeds to supporters.
Concern focuses on a massive scheme called
Protection of Basic Services, which is designed to upgrade public services and
is part-funded by DFID.
Force: Ethiopian federal riot police point
their weapons at protesting students in a square in the country's capital,
Addis Ababa Critics say this cash pays the salaries of officials implementing
resettlements and for infrastructure at new villages.
DFID officials have not interviewed Mr O,
reportedly saying it is too risky to visit the United Nations-run camp in Kenya
where he is staying, and refuse to make their assessments public.
A spokesman said they could not comment
specifically on the legal action but added: ‘It is wrong to suggest that
British development money is used to force people from their homes. Our support
to the Protection of Basic Services programme is only used to provide
healthcare, schooling, clean water and other services.’
BRUTALLY DRIVEN FROM HIS FERTILE LAND - AND
HE BLAMES BRITAIN
Intimidation: Riot police confront a man
(not the claimant) near the Tegbareed Industrial College as officers beat
rock-throwing students during a demonstration
As he showed me pictures on his
mobile phone of his homeland, the tall, bearded farmer smiled fondly. ‘We were
very happy growing up there and living there,’ he said. This was hardly
surprising: the lush Gambela region of Ethiopia is a fertile place of fruit
trees, rivers and fissures of gold, writes Ian Birrell
That was the only smile when I met Mr O in
the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya last year. He told me how his simple family
life had been destroyed in seconds – and how he blames British aid for his
misery. ‘I miss my family so much,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be relying on
handouts – I want to be productive.’
His nightmare began in November 2011 when
Ethiopian troops accompanied by officials arrived in his village and ordered
everyone to leave for a new location.
Men who refused were beaten and women were
raped, leaving some infected with HIV. I met a blind man who was hit in
the face and a middle-aged mother whose husband was shot dead beside her
– she still bore obvious the scars from her own beating and rape by three
soldiers.
Unlike their previous home, their new
village had no food, water, school or health facilities. They were not given
farmland and there were just a few menial jobs.
‘The government was pretending it was about
development,’ said Mr O, 33. ‘But they just want to push the indigenous people
off so they can take our land and gold.’
After speaking out against forced
relocations and returning to his village, Mr O was taken to a military camp
where for three days he was gagged with a sock in his mouth, severely kicked
and beaten with rifle butts and sticks.
‘I thought it would be better to die
than to suffer like this,’ he told me. Afterwards, like thousands
of others, he fled the country; now he lives amid the dust and squalor of the
world’s largest refugee camp. He says their land was then given to relatives of
senior regime figures and foreign investors from Asia and the Middle East. ‘I
am very angry about this aid,’ he said. ‘Britain needs to check what is
happening to its money.
‘I hope the court will act to stop the killing, stop the land-grabbing and stop your Government supporting the Ethiopian government behind this.’
As the dignified Mr O said so sagely, what
is happening in his country is the precise opposite of development.
By IAN BIRRELL
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