Ethiopia can manage even if aid cut: Meles

January 28, 2006

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s government would be able to support the country’s development even if donors cut assistance, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Meles was speaking 10 days after Britain said it would block 50 million pounds ($89 million) in budget support because of concerns about governance and human rights after a deadly crackdown on post-election demonstrations.

Britain said it would re-direct the funds to humanitarian aid in donor-dependent Ethiopia.

Western donors currently fund about 10 percent of the budget in sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country.

“The government has the capacity to run regular activities and main development programmes of the country through its own expenditure, should any serious measures be taken by development partners,” the Ethiopian Herald quoted Meles as saying.

Meles said he was not aware of any reduction in overall aid to the Horn of Africa nation, “as has been alleged by some media outlets,” but appeared to acknowledge that some donor countries were shifting budget support to other forms of assistance.

Ethiopia had no problem with this in principle but strongly objects to the reasons given, he said, adding allegations that it had taken “inappropriate measures following the election are wrong and baseless”.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair invited Meles — who has been hailed as one of a new generation of African leaders — onto his Africa Commission as an example of good governance.

But a disputed May election which sparked bloody protests that killed 80 people and the arrest of top opposition leaders on treason charges has tarnished Meles’ image.

He reiterated accusations that the opposition, neighbouring Eritrea and the rebel Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) were behind recent violence in the capital and the south-central Oromia region, where there have been reports of clashes involving students and security forces.

Meles has repeatedly accused the opposition of plotting to incite violence, through street demonstrations, to topple him.

“They used students and unemployed youth to disrupt peace,” he said, according to the Ethiopian Herald. “The government is now hunting down the real perpetrators of the violence.”

Senior political figures from the opposition, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), and 13 journalists are among 131 people charged with treason and plans to commit genocide.

The OLF has been fighting for the independence of the south-central Oromia region from the rest of ethnically diverse Ethiopia since 1993.