I. Paul Henze: Jaundiced Views

I really did not want to write this commentary because of the advanced age of the subject of my criticism. No Ethiopian will feel comfortable taking to task someone who could easily be an eighty-year old grandfather. But the precarious situation of our nation�s survival demands that no sentimentality should stand in the way compromising our resolve. Thus, this article questions the authenticity and honesty of the travel log of Mr. Paul Henze [Ethiopia 2004, Impressions of a Spring Visit].  Henze has been a thorn at our side for over ten years writing misleading accounts about the government of Meles Zenawi and involving himself in the apotheosis or deification of  Meles Zenawi. He had written totally unattainable theories on the conflict between �Eritrea� and Ethiopia defending and promoting the indefensible Meles Zenawi in the face of incontrovertible evidence of the treasonous decisions and agreements made by Meles Zenawi that has compromised the Sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia.

What is troubling is that Henze is deliberately falsifying facts and writing misleading analysis glossing over real important issues such as questions of political corruption, economic disaster, and social deterioration of Ethiopia during the life of the oppressive government of Meles Zenawi and his collaborators. It is understandable for an individual to try to promote the interest of his or her community, but when it is done in such a blatant and racist manner one is rightfully indignant and outraged. The harm the United States government policy unleashed on a friendly nation of a �hundred years� i.e., Ethiopia, to benefit the interest of the Arab nations specially that of Egypt by weakening and destroying Ethiopia is the greatest immoral action by a government in our time no less in its immorality than that of Hitler�s Nazi Germany ambition to subjugate the World.

It is truly disappointing to read such misleading essay by an individual who profess love for Ethiopia, especially someone with unmatched opportunity of access to serious material on economic performance, political violence, corruption et cetera in Ethiopia, which most of us could only dream about of accessing. How could an individual with vast experience, good schooling, and great opportunities sink to such a level of becoming an instrument for the dissemination of cheap propaganda pieces? Henze�s jaundiced view of the political situation in Ethiopia is in line with the overall design of the Government of the United States to marginalize the only Black civilization that has persisted to survive in independence and freedom for centuries. There should be no doubt that the policy of the United States toward Ethiopia is a racist, bigoted, and despicable one. It is in this context that we ought to read Henze�s bovine report.

Henze has emphasized as a grand achievement the housing and highway constructions in few towns and along the beaten paths as if such sporadic efforts have made some dent in the stagnant economic situation in Ethiopia. How many Ethiopian families are benefiting from such isolated undertakings? Those construction works in a vast country and huge population are simply tiny drops in a sea of tremendous unemployment. They are more of cosmetic undertakings than meaningful engagement.

Henze talks about the sanitary improvement of Addis Ababa, the building of some apartments, and park improvement--these are all very limited projects and contingent; they do not address the problems that are destroying Ethiopia. At any rate the beautification of Addis Ababa is the least of our concern. Henze singled out Alamoudi�s investment activities for praise overlooking the near monopolistic stranglehold that man has on Ethiopia�s fragile economy. And also Henze has turned blind eyes to the Wahhabist movement that is implanting the seed of future conflict and civil war in Ethiopia. He is misleading us all when he emphasized the harmonious relationship of Ethiopian Moslems and Christians as if it is a consequence of the enlightened policy of Meles Zenawi�s Government, for the fact is that harmonious relationship between Ethiopian Moslems and Christians is our long standing unique history of several centuries that is now being eroded by Wahhabist implants such as Saudi investors and Embassy personnel who are on a mission to destroy the Ethiopian Christian Orthodox Church, the greatest and most tolerant of all the Churches of the world.

We would like to know how the ill-conceived amateurish �ethnic federalism� of the current Ethiopian government structure is not breaking up Ethiopia on ethnic lines and erecting walls in between the Ethiopian people destroying the sense of Ethiopianess that had taken centuries to bring about through centuries of independence and freedom as a unitary state. Henze has mentioned a single instance of Gambela civil unrest ignoring the numerous unrests all over Ethiopia due to the �federal� structure that is promoting conflicts and hate in ethnic groups in Arisi, Wollega, Sidamo, Wello, Gojam, Harar, Bale, and Tigre. [I am deliberately using the old Provincial identification for a legitimate reason in order to counter the destructive use of Meles Zenawi�s form of ethnic federalism.] The problem of Ethiopia has to do with basic issues on the legitimacy of the current dictatorial government of Meles Zenawi and the types of major policy decisions on internal government structure and international relations.

Henze has expressed his admiration on the number of new restaurants being opened in Addis Ababa, and how some rich Ethiopians frequent the Hilton and Sheraton Hotels. How the aggregation of a handful of individuals at the Hilton Hotel bars is to be judged in context of the millions of Addis Ababeans who could hardly eat a decent single meal a day? How about the tens of thousands of political detainees and political prisoners? It would help us more to find solutions if we knew how their situation is being resolved. Another situation no tourist/scholar will easily miss is the life condition of millions of dehumanized Ethiopian beggars to be found scavenging for food  all over Addis Ababa and in other urban centers, or the inhuman condition families with children are living in �shanty towns� on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, which fact is conveniently ignored by Henze. Have all those unfortunate Ethiopians suddenly become invisible to the jaded eyes of Henze?

How about telling us about the poor school system, with its antiquated curriculum, and even at that barely serving ten percent of Ethiopia�s school age children? Henze mentioned with some admiration how the President of Addis Ababa University is successfully running a very troubled University. Henze�s account is laughable for the University has become another branch of Meles Zenawi�s Security agency with totally marginalized faculty who are very traumatized by the type of juvenile and cliquish new administration. At any rate, the University is not worth the sacrifice of so many Ethiopian students who are left out due to exceptionally forbidding entrance requirements discouraging and killing the aspirations of so many Ethiopians. Is the importation of Indian teachers while kicking out or intimidating so many qualified and senior Ethiopian professors a mark of an efficient administration? The University is a mess, and has become the stomping ground for the Aradas.

Of course, no article by Henze will be complete without hyperbole of praise of Meles Zenawi. Henze wrote that Meles Zenawi is respected by fellow African leaders. Even if that is true, what is the big deal being respected by a bunch of dictators? Ye aite miskrwa dimbit. He also has added that due to Meles Zenawi�s stature as a leader that he will be re-elected. What a farce? The re-election of Meles is a forgone conclusion not because of his good leadership or stature  in international affairs but due to his tyrannical government structure and oppression of the opposition or anyone else. Henze did not discuss the type of oppression including murder, disappearances, imprisonment suffered by the opposition. He alluded also about the problem with one opposition group is being due to the membership of some former officials or individuals associated with Haile Selassie or Mengistu�s regime, totally forgetting the fact that Meles Zenawi�s government is seeded with those types of individuals in several of the Ministries dealing with international relations, economic planning, investment offices, banking et cetera. It does not take old age and great experience to predict the outcome of the 2005 election; a seven year old child of the street in Merkato can give us as much prediction as Henze.

Even when Henze seems to be making serious evaluation on the question of the border conflict between �Eritrea� and Ethiopia, he avoids writing about the destructive role played by the government of Meles Zenawi that ceded Ethiopian territory first by sending to the United Nations a letter of unconditional consent to the independence of Eritrea and later after the war by signing the Algiers Agreement, an agreement that is at the center of the present conflict and destruction of Ethiopia. Henze deliberately avoided to inform us how the loss of Ethiopia�s coastal territories and ports has brought about extreme hardship on Ethiopia�s economy and threatened the national security of Ethiopia. Henze�s attempt in telling us how Isaias Afeworki had imprisoned his close associates, some of whom members of his own inner circle, without ever mentioning how Meles Zenawi liquidated TPLF�s Central Committee members and Ethiopian Army commanders, is a blatant effort to misdirect the pointing fingers of all Ethiopians away from Meles Zenawi, the treasonous leader who signed off our patrimony in the Algiers Agreement.

Since Henze seems to have some close connection with people at the United Nations, the State Department, and the Security Agencies, we would have been well served if he had written one paragraph exposing the design such entities have for Ethiopia, rather than the ten pages of nonsense of his Spring foray into Ethiopia. In particular, since he seems to know more than we do of things forbidden to our eyes, we would like to know how the ex-Foreign Minister of Canada, Lloyd Axworthy, whose office brokered fifteen years ago the departure of Mengistu Hailemariam, escaping certain capture and prosecution, is going to help solve the looming conflict between �Eritrea� and Ethiopia as the new United Nations representative to the conflict. Does not Axworthy�s previous involvement to some extent pre-determine his actions in the present border conflict? More importantly, why should we maintain a flawed process that was illegal from the very beginning that is designed to landlock Ethiopia? The Ethiopian government should throw out completely the Algiers Agreement and the decision of the Commission due to corruption. Ethiopia should formally notify the United Nations Security Council that its Resolutions in connection to the Boundary Conflict and Boundary Commission is illegal and contrary to well established principles of international law because it interfered with the Sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State of Ethiopia, a founding member of the United Nations itself. These are issues that we want to know about than some cockamamie statement about �Eritreans� being smuggled into Ethiopia. Henze is reducing the gravity of the conflict, the land-locking of Ethiopia, the suffering of Ethiopians caught in the ill conceived foreign policy of the United States to destroy or marginalize Ethiopia, by focusing us on the misdeeds of some UN personnel smuggling �Eritreans� in to Ethiopia or side-stepping important issues. I have no problem even if the entire Eritrean population moves to our part of Ethiopia.

Henze seems to be growing ever more insensitive to the needs and aspirations of Ethiopians with the passage of time; the last example of his predicament is to be found in this truly appalling and frivolous Spring 2004 travel log.

II. Note From a Confessional

I tried my hand in the 1991-1992 periods to work with the EPRDF. Few individuals have found my year-long service with the EPRDF controlled Ethiopian Government as some kind of a chink in my armor, and on that basis they went to the extent of challenging my articles in that I have no right/voice to criticize the Mehale Sefaris. The metaphor given was that �[t]hose who live in glass houses should not throw stones,� with the implication that such stone-throwing individuals will bring on themselves havoc. The problem with that type of attitude is that it endorses pacifism, extreme caution that amounts to opportunism, and nonparticipation. Sadly, it also encourages people to be fateful, and to sit and wait until some political program fully developed drops down out of nowhere for individuals to join up--totally impractical expectation. How I wish life was so simple. The fact of the matter is that one has to try to bring about those desirable changes when ever there is a chance for such changes. If one waits for the perfect system to come along ones way, one probably will die of old age sitting and waiting on the sidelines of history. And I am no sitting-duck waiting for some miracle to happen--I strive to cause miracles happen. 

To illustrate my understanding of a universal principle applicable to the way I conduct my life, I will cite a particularly virile example from an ancient text. In the Mahabharata (the Bhagavad-Gita), the Charioteer (Lord Krishna in disguise) informs his master the troubled Arjuna, who was hesitating whether to attack the army of his adversaries on the battle field of Kurukshetra, that it is better to take action than no action even if some people might get hurt. "A person does not avoid incurring karma just by not performing acts, nor does he achieve success by giving up acts.�  When people cower and not act, no matter how compromised they might be, the outcome is that evil invariably will still triumph even if in a less dramatic manner. The good cannot be left to chance or serendipity outcomes. And politics is too important to give up to amateurs--thus my continued effort. Action is preferred than non-action in all my thinking and efforts.