Alemayehu G. Mariam Is the World Growing Honest or Doomsday Near? I encountered the tantalizing headline unexpectedly: “Bold Words From British Government Representative”. Britain’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, Norman Ling, said: We should not be giving aid to African dictators, but there is a lot of public support in Britain for spending money on people who…
Alemayehu G. Mariam The Triumphalism of African Dictators There is nothing that is both amusing and annoying than the chest-beating triumphalism of Africa’s tin pot dictators. This past February, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda lectured a press conference: “There will be no Egyptian-like revolution here. … We would just lock them up. In the most humane…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Lies, Junk and Cut-and-Paste Meles Zenawi, the dictator-in-chief in Ethiopia, says he does not want to talk about the 2010 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights [Report] in Ethiopia. But speaking through his parrot Hailemariam Desalegn, Zenawi said the Report is a meaningless “cut and paste” exercise and will be…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Following the Battle of Zela in 47 B.C. (present day Zile, Turkey), Julius Caesar claimed victory by declaring: “I came; I saw; I conquered.” In 2011, Caesar Meles Zenawi, the dictator-in-chief in Ethiopia, scattered his top henchmen throughout the U.S. and Europe to declare victory in the propaganda war on Diaspora Ethiopians….
Alemayehu G. Mariam End Game Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire arrested! Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in intensive care! Moamar Gadhafi of Libya under siege! Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan, a fugitive from justice. Ben Ali of Tunisia out of Africa! Meles Zenawi, sleepless in Ethiopia. These are heady days on the African continent. These are…
Alemayehu G. Mariam The Common People Don’t Want War At the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, Hermann Goering, Hitler’s right-hand man, told his interrogator: Naturally the common people don’t want war. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to…
Alemayehu G. Mariam The Shell Game of African Democracy If the Ivory Coast, one of the most prosperous African countries, can be considered a template for political change on the continent, democracy can replace dictatorship only by means of a civil war. For the past 5 months, Laurent Gbagbo, the loser of the November 2010…
The Deal of the Century Supposing someone offered you the following land deal, would you take it or walk away believing it is too good to be true? For £150 a week (USD$245), you can lease more than 2,500 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of virgin, fertile land – an area the size of Dorset,…
This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post 3/22/2011 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-broken-contract-_b_838793.html Over the past week, Meles Zenawi has been waxing eloquent on contract and leasehold law. Asked by a local journalist whether the winds of change blowing in North Africa could make a detour to Ethiopia, he said that was impossible because he and his party…
Note: In ongoing commentaries, the author examines the Obama Administration’s policy in Africa. Moral Hazard and Moral Bankruptcy The concept of ‘moral hazard’ in politics may be used to explain a situation in which a government is insulated and immunized from the consequences of its risky, reckless and incompetent behavior. For instance, a regime that…
