Ethiopia

Ethiopia's Cruel Con Game
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Capital Flows , CONTRIBUTOR

Guest commentary curated by Forbes Opinion. Avik Roy, Opinion Editor.Opinions expressed by Forbes
Contributors are their own.
GUEST POST WRITTEN BY
David Steinman
Mr. Steinman advises foreign democracy movements. He authored the novel “Money, Blood and Conscience”
about Ethiopia’s secret genocide.
In what could be an important test of the Trump Administration’s attitude toward

foreign aid, the new United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and UN
aid chief Stephen O'Brien have called on the international community to give the
Ethiopian government another $948 million to assist a reported 5.6 million people
facing starvation.
Speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, during the recent 28th Summit of
the African Union, Guterres described Ethiopia as a “pillar of stability” in the
tumultuous Horn of Africa, praised its government for an effective response to last
year's climate change-induced drought that left nearly 20 million people needing
food assistance, and asked the world to show “total solidarity” with the regime.
Women and children wait for care at an outpatient treatment center in Lerra village,
Wolayta, Ethiopia, on June 10, 2008. (Jose Cendon/Bloomberg News)
Ethiopia is aflame with rebellions against its unpopular dictatorship, which tried to
cover up the extent of last year’s famine. But even if the secretary general’s
encouraging narrative were true, it still begs the question: Why, despite ever-
increasing amounts of foreign support, can’t this nation of 100 million clever,
enterprising people feed itself? Other resource-poor countries facing difficult
environmental challenges manage to do so.
Two numbers tell the story in a nutshell:
1. The amount of American financial aid received by Ethiopia’s government since it

took power: $30 billion.
2. The amount stolen by Ethiopia’s leaders since it took power: $30 billion.
The latter figure is based on the UN’s own 2015 report on Illicit Financial Outflows by
a panel chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki and another from
Global Financial Integrity, an American think tank. These document $2-3 billion—an
amount roughly equaling Ethiopia’s annual foreign aid and investment—being
drained from the country every year, mostly through over- and under-invoicing of
imports and exports.
Ethiopia’s far-left economy is centrally controlled by a small ruling clique that has
grown fantastically wealthy. Only they could be responsible for this enormous
crime. In other words, the same Ethiopian leadership that’s begging the world for
yet another billion for its hungry people is stealing several times that amount every
year.
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America and the rest of the international community have turned a blind eye to this
theft of taxpayer money and the millions of lives destroyed in its wake, because they
rely on Ethiopia’s government to provide local counterterror cooperation, especially
with the fight against Al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia. But even there we’re being
taken. Our chief aim in Somalia is to eliminate Al-Shabab. Our Ethiopian ally’s aim is
twofold: Keep Somalia weak and divided so it can’t unite with disenfranchised fellow
Somalis in Ethiopia’s adjoining, gas-rich Ogaden region; and skim as much foreign
assistance as possible. No wonder we’re losing.
The Trump Administration has not evinced particular interest in democracy

promotion, but much of Ethiopia’s and the region’s problems stem from Ethiopia’s
lack of the accountability that only democracy confers. A more accountable
Ethiopian government would be forced to implement policies designed to do more
than protect its control of the corruption. It would have to free Ethiopia’s people to
develop their own solutions to their challenges and end their foreign dependency. It
would be compelled to make the fight on terror more effective by decreasing fraud,
basing military promotions on merit instead of cronyism and ending the diversion of
state resources to domestic repression. An accountable Ethiopian government
would have to allow more relief to reach those who truly need it and reduce the
waste of U.S. taxpayers’ generous funding. Representative, accountable
government would diminish the Ogaden’s secessionist tendencies that drive
Ethiopia’s counterproductive Somalia strategy.
Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn attends the 28th African Union
summit in Addis Ababa on January 30, 2017. (ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/Getty
Images)
But Ethiopia’s government believes it has America over a barrel and doesn’t have to
be accountable to us or to its own people. Like Mr. Guterres, past U.S. presidents
have been afraid to confront the regime, which even forced President Barack
Obama into a humiliating public defense of its last stolen election. The result has
been a vicious cycle of enablement, corruption, famine and terror.
Whether the Trump Administration will be willing to play the same game remains to
be seen. The answer will serve as a signal to other foreign leaders who believe
America is too craven to defend its money and moral values.
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Ethiopia's Cruel Con Game

Capital Flows , CONTRIBUTOR

GUEST POST WRITTEN BY

In what could be an important test of the Trump Administration’s attitude toward

1. The amount of American financial aid received by Ethiopia’s government since it

The Trump Administration has not evinced particular interest in democracy

Comment on this story

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