Stifling democracy through budget support

By Aklilu Demissie
May 30, 2006

The idea of distributing aid through local governments to reach the needy is just another crafted blatant way of extending and perpetuating the misery and poverty in the country contrary to suggested implication of budgetary hold-up.

Where has the money that went through previously ended up? Who did really benefit? The order of the day favors gun power than democratic principles.

Ishac Diwan can not be more Ethiopian than the deeply troubled people of Ethiopia. He can not articulate what is best by what so ever standard for the needy and marginalized Ethiopians. Be he or the World Bank would have served Ethiopians if they had the gut to stop the treachery of the régime. If they really committed themselves to democratic governance, why are they not able to stop arbitrary detentions and summary killings of political opponents? Incarceration of political opponents is still a day today phenomenon.

Opposition leaders, independent journalists, poverty reduction specialists are languishing in jails. Thousands are in concentration camps. All independent media out lets in the country are shut off. The legislative and the judiciary have been made instruments of debauchery and the media controlled Orwellian style.

It has even leaped in to blocking opposition internet websites out of sheer desperation. What signals will supporting this kind of rogue régimes send to the world? What are the guarantees that the World Bank has this budgetary support won’t end up in financing Rwandan type genocide from a belligerent and desperate Meles? Who would be ultimately responsible? Would it be those who initiated and approved a catch phrase of Protection of Basic Services (PBS) for direct budgetary support to a rejected tyrant?

The harrowing odyssey the people of Ethiopia are going through every day has made no sense to the financers. They have become more adept in financing the road to perdition. What makes it more painful and disdainful is the way it is presented by these foreign elements who are shedding crocodile tears for the people. Where are the missing and the unaccounted for of the régimes excesses?

Has the blood of the fallen dried up? Why not Ishac Diwan expound on behalf of the government on these as well, as he usually dose on many other things?

The World Bank never had the leverage to control or direct the implementation of good governance in the past and where in the world will it bring it now; just from the régime’s promise in releasing unprecedented information. Ludicrous. Where is the commitment and accountability of the regime? Statistically inflated figures of growth in health and education endeavors which World Bank officials are coping and pasting for the regime is part of a betrayal of true democratic aspirations of Ethiopians.

The World Bank has become another challenge to the cause of democracy in Ethiopia. The régime will unquestionably utilize the fund for continued murder and mayhem of the marginalized.

It will continue the marginalization of its political opponents both in towns and rural areas through its beefed up operation of its security apparatus. It is ridiculous to infer that regional states or Woredas being independent of the tenacious grip of Meles and the money to filter down to the poor.

It is another despise and contempt to the intellect of the Ethiopian people to tell them they are being supported while the régime is using it to fuel ethnic hatred and the destruction of the country as a nation. No one is against humanitarian assistance.

The régime is cash strapped and is grossly short of supporting its security apparatus. Priority for the government is not growth and development .It is just a matter of clinging to power for the very few days it may have before its demise.

What is the bench mark of good governance that extends a generous hand to a despot? Bullets?

Aklilu Demissie can be reached for comments at akndka@yahoo.com