You will agree with us that there are real
consequences when internationally known intellectuals with power and influence
provide legitimacy to dictators such as Mr. Meles Zenawi. On the ground, the
lives of ordinary Ethiopians who are denied livelihoods, suffer from unemployment,
live with hunger and face the indignities of living under a repressive system
each and every day tell the real story. These Ethiopians have been caught up
between your policy/ideological preference on the one hand, and your delight in
finding an African ruler who is happy to play the African anti-neoliberal Robin
to your Batman. Don’t you think this is unfair and unjust? We regret to
say that, in your ideological and intellectual battles with the IMF in
collaboration with Mr. Meles, you gave a dictator the benefits of your global
status as a leading economist. He has used this to polish his international
image. The cost to the Ethiopian people has been high. African intellectuals,
academics and fair minded leaders find this kind of affinity with African
dictators regrettable and unbecoming of leading economist like you. What
saddens and amazes us is your endorsement of Mr. Meles Zenawi’s knowledge
of economics and his intellectual acumen. This, we find utterly irresponsible
and intellectually dishonest. Ethiopia has many intellectual leaders scattered
around the globe. Mr. Meles Zenawi is not one of them. This disservice to the
Ethiopian people and to the rest of Africans is contained in your book, Globalization and its Discontents, in
which you state that Mr. Zenawi
How
do we reconcile your assessments and conclusions with other experts and global
institutions such Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, Global
Financial Integrity, Mo Ibrahim, Oxford University and even the World Bank? . As far as we are concerned he has several
times failed his economics tests miserably. His economic policies and programs have
brought untold suffering to the Ethiopian people. In the event you are not
aware of his many failures, we would like to identify a most recent one.
Recently he imposed price caps on a dozen or so goods. When imposing his
ill-fated price caps measure, Mr. Zenawi told us that he was doing it in order
to curb the month-to-month double-digit inflation that the country was
experiencing. As any student who has taken principles of economics course would
have predicted, the colossal failure of the price cap measure has not only
backfired on his regime; it has also brought untold suffering to the Ethiopian
people. As we predicted, every negative and secondary effect of price caps that
any economist would theorize has been realized in Ethiopia. Mr. Zenawi’s
price caps measures qualify to be cited as lessons in how to mismanage an
economy. As if this is not enough, Mr. Zenawi tried to shift the blame on the Ethiopian
entrepreneurs and merchants. A few days before imposing the ill-fated price
caps measure, he gathered about 584 businesspersons and accused them of price
gauging, hoarding and engaging in unhealthy competition. He told them that he
would “cut their fingers” unless they cooperate with him. For
anyone who watched the entire taunting process (and the ones before it) and Mr.
Zenawi’s rants and the stunned faces and silence of the 584 businessmen and
women, it was clear that the attendees were scared and did not know what to
say. Hemet with and freighted the
business community despite the fact that he had been informed (see, for
example, http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/67399)
In no small part to your contribution, Mr. Zenawi’s
appearance at Columbia University on 22, September, 2010, shocked the Ethiopian
community in the Diaspora and in the country.[6]
His speech, the essence of which was the condemnation of neo-liberalism, was
preceded by your warm welcome and introduction. You invited Mr. Zenawi to speak
at World Leaders Forum at Columbia despite the fact that you were amply
informed of his regime’s atrocities by many people of Ethiopian origin.
Letters were sent to your institution via Lee
C Bollinger, President of Colombia
University, the student paper at Columbia,
Columbia Spectator, and through several faculty members at Columbia.[7]
Your University’s website
initially carried the following scandalous statement about the visit. We
presume that you were not unaware of the statement.
“Under the seasoned governmental leadership
of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, now in his fourth term, and vision of the
Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), Ethiopia has made and continues to make progresses in many
areas including in education, transportation, health and energy.”
, some of our own research and the researches
of others indicate that, thanks to the huge sums of donor funds, enrolment
ratios have improved but quality has deteriorated. This fact has been
acknowledged On August 26, 2010, when the Ministry of Education issued a directive that
categorically banned all public and private higher learning institutions from
running distance education programs, and all private higher learning
institutions from offering on-campus law and teachers’ education
programs.
In light of the above and the ample reliable
documentation of repression, gross human rights abuses, alleged genocide,
single party and endowment command and control of the national economy, massive
unemployment, land grab and mismanagement of the national economy, we urge you
to no longer give legitimacy to the dictatorial regime led by Mr. Meles Zenawi.
We believe that you’re past support and endorsement may have overlooked
the real facts on the ground.As a
Nobel Prize winner and a reputed leading economist you have provided Mr. Zenawi
status and legitimacy he and his regime do not deserve. He is universally
identified as one of the worst dictators in Africa today. The democratic wave
that brought down dictators in Tunisia and Egypt is not likely to stop there. Foreign Policy magazine reported that the
Tunisian and Egyptian ex-presidents are not alone. It provided a line-up of the eight worst dictators
that fall into this category. Meles Zenawi makes this membership.
(“America’s Other Most Embarrassing Allies”.)[8]
Your video of February 2, 2011 has shown that you are able to see the downfall
of autocratic rulers who choke their country and economy.
We
urge you to be part of a legacy of prominent voices around the globe who
believe in human freedoms and possibilities. At the end of the day, economic
development is about people. You will agree with us that the nexus between
economic development and good governance is so compelling that any form of
dictatorship can’t be acceptable in North Africa, the Middle East or
Sub-Saharan Africa.
