The catastrophic economic and social situation prevailing in Ethiopia is mainly due to its tyrant leaders who maltreat; torture and massacre their own people in broad daylights simply because they are at odds with their ill-conceived policies.

The poverty and social unrest in today’s Ethiopia find their roots in P.M. Meles’ bad governance, in his ill-crafted economic and social policies designed to endlessly absorb western donations and in his strong desire to take his citizens as hostages of foreign handouts.

It goes without saying that most of western aid, once obtained, will be diverted to fulfill the hyneous appetites of individuals and gangsters in power in Ethiopia. The Meles regime is an outstanding example of a failed state in Africa with a deep-seated dislike of his own people especially enlightened ones, a kind of systematic purification that has emptied Ethiopia of its educated elites.

Strictly speaking, Ethiopians today are stateless and sending “development” aid via the TPLF of Meles Zenawi is to have a hand in state-orchestrated famine and poverty. Fourteen years of uncontrolled western donations to Meles have never made the country either self-reliant or proud but simply created a culture of dependency syndrome by discouraging people’s own efforts and motivation.

On the other hand, 14 years of “development” aid aggrandized the power and influence of Meles Zenawi over his people where his government became the only beneficiary of this cynic process by diverting it to his political ends. It is to be noted that in Ethiopia of the Meles era, any deviation from government loyalty on the part of a citizen or of a community will automatically result in denial of aid.

We believe that the only way to get out of this problem is to give aid directly to the recipients and democratize the country by helping the opposition parties on whom the Ethiopian people have built confidence. Even thereafter, aid should be conditioned to continued good governance, to control and accountability. Aid should ultimately lead to self-reliance and should be subordinated to measurable and/or observable outcomes, both quantitative and qualitative.

Giving aid to Ethiopia through the most corrupt and failed government of Meles also enlarges anti-donors sentiment, which is beginning to surface both in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa (an area where Meles also was dreaming to expand his clout). And any consideration that Meles will still remain a more reliable Western ally than the legitimate opposition parties comes down to a crude guesswork.

A close scrutiny of the Meles group, starting from its cradle, reveals that it has never been a force for stability but rather a fear, suspicion and secrecy laboratory whose continuation on power would only mean more famine, more repression and more instability in Ethiopia in particular and in the Horn in general. We feel that “development” partners of this regime are cognizant of this reality.

But it was really disturbing to hear from Meles himself, in a recent interview with a BBC journalist, that his Western”development” partners recognized the state of emergency he declared prohibiting any peaceful public gatherings in Addis Ababa.

And to us the Ethiopians, the honorable place accorded to Meles in Mr. Blair’s Commission for Africa simply fortifies the absence of respect his government holds on us. Even to the rest of the world community, putting Saddam Hussein behind the bars but the recidivist Meles Zenawi in the recent G8 Summit remains a paradox.

To put it in a nutshell, Meles and his group are not our leaders but a gang of fear and famine fabricating dictators whom our people have rejected in the past May 15, 2005 general election.

Resistance is a legitimate matter to a weaker victim. Even more it is a duty.