Today, the Ethiopian public is in a desperate need for edible oil, sugar, and other basic food commodities. According to the Central Statistics Agency, the inflation rate for food items has increased from 16.5% in February 2011 to 25% in March 2011. How come a population impoverished by the ill-conceived economic policies of EPRDF could buy a bond to finance this huge dam? The market has completely gone insane as a result of the recent price cap imposed without any evidence/science base. Zenawi’s family has been busy importing, wholesaling, and retailing sugar and edible oil. Let me quote Charles Darwin here: If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. According to the 2008 World Bank PovCalNet, 39% of the Ethiopian population lives below the national poverty line. Here is a simple arithmetic: If the total population stands at 82 million, then 31,980,000 people are under the poverty line – incredible figure!
Ethiopia ranks 157th out of the 169 countries with an HDI of 0.328 according to the 2010 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR). The HDI sets a minimum and a maximum for each dimension, called goalposts, and then shows where each country stands in relation to these goalposts, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. The 2010 HDR divided countries into four categories based on their HDIs: very high human development, high human development, medium human development, and low human development. Ethiopia falls under the last category. HDI, as a new way of measuring development, combines indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI. When economists tell Zenawi about these hard facts, her resorts to make fun by saying these figures emanate from groceries, bars, or bear gardens since he is not an economist, nor a political scientist, nor a sociologist. He always fails to understand statistics. Joseph Eugene Stieglitz cannot always be beside him to interpret each and every statistics.
By the way, are we requesting for the construction of an artificial lake? We could not even still use our existing natural lakes to the full. Rather, we Ethiopians are requesting for the following:
Immediate dissolution of the rubberstamp Parliament/House of Peoples’ Representatives that came into existence by the sham election in 2010.
Immediate establishment of an interim government consisting of all political parties
Unconditional abolition of the existing puppet electoral board and immediate establishment of free one
Amendment of the constitution based on constitutional referendum observed by the international community
Unconditional erasure of the new press law, the civil societies legislation, and the anti-terrorism law
Dissolution of the Woyanne economic empire, including the infamous endowments
I am not saying that we do not want hydroelectric power for domestic consumption and to gain foreign currency. We desperately need it since our industries are suffering from persistent power outages. The Ethiopian hard-working people will construct the dam after they get rid of this mercenary regime that served and continue to serve the Eritrean national interest. We do not trust this regime to invest ETB 80 billion. The Ethiopian Diaspora in North America thought a lesson to Woyane and its cliques that they will no more cling to power to divide (on ethnic lines) and impoverish our people, lease out our hard-fought, arable lands, and dismantle Ethiopianity. We yearn for economic justice where every individual, irrespective of his ethnic origin and political affiliation, can enjoy equal access to education and employment opportunities.
Today, in Ethiopia social exclusion is finding its expression in higher education. People are admitted to universities not based on their merits but by a simple support letter written from TPLF on their behalf. An Amhara cannot enjoy employment in Tigray or Oromia regions and vice versa.
Zenawi is not the right person to construct this Dam. He does not have any legitimacy to rule Ethiopia. Zenawi’s regime lacks legitimacy of origin/procedural democracy (since his authority did not originate from popular sovereignty expressed through free and fair elections) and legitimacy of exercise/substantive democracy (since it does not exert its power in a manner consistent with basic political freedoms and the rule of law).
He is just an Eritrean mercenary, so to speak. The coming democratically elected premier/president will be in charge of building this and other dams. Every ordinary Ethiopian understands that the grand dam is meant for the Grand Millennium Corruption – I mean it. How can poor Ethiopia whose annual budget is less than 70 billion birr afford to construct this huge Dam without a foreign aid? Let his mafias contribute from what they have stolen. The degenerating Zenawi regime admitted that Egypt has prevented donors from financing this dam. Why? We are short of strong persons in the foreign relations arena for the last 20 years that can persuade donors with sufficient reasoning to finance hydro-electric or irrigation dams.
Due to lack of competent personnel in foreign affairs, they made us land-locked; gave our hard-fought land for the Sudan; and now they have invited Egyptians and the Sudanese to have a lion’s share in the highly politicized Dam. Let me quote what VOA wrote: “Ethiopia is offering Egypt and Sudan an olive branch in their bitter dispute over sharing the waters of the Nile River. The offer includes possible joint ownership of a huge Ethiopian hydropower project that Egypt has tried to block.” How a mindful Prime Minister can offer an olive-branch-in-ownership for countries that have been enemies of Ethiopia since time immemorial because of the Blue Nile where this Dam is going to be constructed? Zenawi must have gone insane due to the disturbing news about the Arab Spring that swept the North Africa and the Middle East dictators. Imagine how Zenawi is committed to endanger the national interest of Ethiopia! Even the current puppet Foreign Minister is not a full-time minister. He is a Deputy Prime Minister as well; he does not have diplomatic experience, either.
Zenawi called upon “farmers, urban dwellers, investors and Ethiopians abroad to participate in the grand project by purchasing [millennium] bond”. To translate Zenawi’s unrewarding call into action, his dogs, who live on Azeb’s leftovers, went to North America and Europe to beg for hard currency from the Diaspora and most importantly to create a rift between the Diaspora and us in Ethiopia. Doubtless, they faced unprecedented opposition there and they got back home empty-handed. They have been offered hard curse not hard currency and the Diaspora will continue financing the inevitable Ethiopian Revolution which will be ignited in May 2011.
