Eisenhower’s observation rings louder nowhere than in Ethiopia where the people endure a heartbreaking life of living below an absolute poverty level.

Though every single military resource is supposed to be utilized for the ultimate protection of ones own country, wasting these expensive resources has its own destructive impact on the same in many aspects. It’s a public secret that Ethiopia has lived defending its sovereignty and independence for generations. Such existence was made possible because of a blend of able leaderships as well as courageous people.

How about today? What is the state of our defense forces? What are the resources being spent? And are they managed well? This essay attempts to shed light on this little-explored issue.

One way of modernizing an army is by establishing technology-based institutions that are capable of training and educating army officers to cope up with modern technologies, manufacture and maintain different army equipment in order to be efficient and effective at the battle field. Such a huge task requires expensive input, enthusiastic workforce and it might be un-economical if not managed properly. Most may agree on the fundamental issue that it is essential to establish these institutions to certain extent in Ethiopia, but the critical question here is, are these institutions functioning properly to achieve the desired objectives?

Under previous regimes in Ethiopia, there were institutions primarily engaged in recruiting and training military cadets, such as the Harar Cadet Academy and Ghenet Tor Academy and lower level technical schools. Besides, officers and others have been sent to foreign countries primarily to acquire details of military science and technology. As a result, it was logical to establish a home-based military technological institution at least to address some technical requirements within the country.

It was on such a basis the Defense Engineering College was turned into Defense University College in 1997. As a beginner, it was difficult to find sufficient staff, equipment and other inputs locally to run the college, which was forced to hire foreign instructors, to import expensive machines and equipment that eventually incurred enormous expenses and running costs.

For instance, the average monthly salary of one foreign instructor is about ten times higher than that of an Ethiopian equivalent. It is believed that no other university in Ethiopia has been established with such a huge initial cost. Then it started admitting prospective students both from the army and civilian organizations.

Later when Defense Engineering College was upgraded to Defense University College, it comprised of the college of engineering, college of health sciences, and the college of management. However, the college of engineering was the most powerful one in terms of budget allocation and resource consumption. This fact attracted administrative officials, especially in the College of Engineering, to continuously destabilize the normal structure of the university and break it down into individual colleges in order to gain autonomous administrative power in the College of Engineering.

Apart from educating military students in the university, many staff instructors have also been sent for further studies to India, Russia, China and others. This again brought in more expenses to the university. As mentioned at the beginning, it is very essential to evaluate if all these human and material resources are utilized properly to meet the stated objectives. Below a few major problems that prohibited the achievement of the intended objectives are presented.

1. The major threat against the intended objectives is the lack of effective leadership in the university. There exists disobedience to the hierarchical administrative lines that extended from the university to the colleges. As an academic institution, the colleges under the university should have accepted decisions made and approved by the university senate and implement them. However, what has been experienced is that while the university has planned implementation of scheduled tasks in the colleges, especially the college of engineering has violated to execute these tasks. It was a frequent phenomenon that several decisions made by the university senate and the commandant of the university were deliberately ignored and left unexecuted. This finally caused the collapse of the university and the existence of individual colleges as separate bodies, which was the secret plan undergone in order to hold the autonomous power of administration at the College of Engineering .
2. There are also problems of corruption associated with higher level officers maintaining key positions at the colleges. In recruiting foreign instructors, the procedure is that selection board from the university or the colleges is sent abroad and investigate the qualifications of foreign instructors before hiring them. However, in the past many foreign instructors with low qualification and work experience were hired and slowed down the teaching learning process. The worst scenario is that these low qualified instructors , who are expected to leave the colleges unconditionally, are subjected to pay part of their salaries to the army officials and stay in the colleges. This is a fact that many know and can give their witnesses. Even there were real incidents, such as meetings, where this situation became obvious to top military officials at Defense Ministry, but no measures were taken.
3. In the Ethiopian constitution it is stated that the defense force should maintain impartial stand regardless of the political beliefs and experience of both the ruling and opposition parties. The army is basically required to protect the country against invading enemies. As a military academic institution, this university should have also practiced what is stated on the constitution. However, the army officials and key officers in the colleges have taken a side to the ruling party and condemn opposition parties and their ideas. Specially after the 2005 national election, students and staff members who were expressing their constructive ideas have been labeled as members and supporters of opposition parties and faced sever challenges. Some of them were forced to migrate to other countries fearing the attack of the government and some were detained and is unclear where they are still now.
4. Another problem is a common one that graduates of the college are facing not only at Defense University College but also in any other department where they are assigned under the Ministry of National Defense. While admitting prospective students, officials give several promises. However, they meet only very few of them. For instance, military instructors having Bachelor of Technology and teaching at Defense University College and those assigned on technical areas in other sections, such as Ethiopian Air force, Dejen Aviation Maintenance and Complex Ambo Artillery Factory, Project 40027 etc, receive one half the salary of their equivalents working at civilian institutions. In the past the government has claimed bonus and salary raise but graduates of this university have been approved for very few of them. Every time when they demand their right, it is given a political interpretation and cover and put their life in danger.
5. A horrible scenario at this moment is the plan to pay these graduates according to their military rank, rather than their professional qualification, that is contradicting the promise given while admitting them to the colleges. But the fact is that almost all of these graduates are at private level irrespective of their bachelor and masters degrees. Shifting the payment technique from professional scheme to military rank scheme will greatly decline their salary. If these graduates found working part time in any other institution, as many civil graduates do, they would be thrown to jail.
6. As an academic institution, whose major objective should be addressing technical problems in the army, major emphasis should have been given to academic issues. However, what has been experienced is that academic issues are paid much lesser priority than the political issues. Interruptions of already scheduled academic classes are common phenomenon. These interruptions last long time and violate the yearly academic calendars. During such interruptions, several formal and informal meetings are conducted primarily to address political issues of the ruling party and to put pressure on the army members to provide their support for the ruling party, which is an anti constitutional practice that isolates other competitive opposition parties. If such meetings had been conducted to rectify the already existing series problems in the university, the stated objectives would have been achieved.
7. The fear environment that exists in the college is another major threat against the effort to achieve the planned goal .There is no freedom to speak and explain one’s own ideas and beliefs. It seems there is encouragement to do so, however, it is done to know what is there in someone’s mind. Many staff members and students have been abused, and forced to migrate to other countries fearing detainment and arrest .Several others have also been detained, imprisoned and faced fatal challenges for expressing their own constructive ideas and beliefs. Moreover, strategic intelligence network is now implemented in the army and other civil organizations by further training selected graduates of the college who are from single ethnic tribe and loyal to the ruling party. This intelligence network is aimed at intercepting electronic communications, blocking oppositions’ websites and others. It is a real opportunity to make sure that ethnic discrimination is still the key principle of the regime’s politics in the army and the discriminatory policies have led to blind repression against graduates from other ethnic groups.
8. There is a general tagging by higher military officers that graduates of these colleges are threats to their policies and administration as most of them strive for their rights and for better way of accomplishing their assignments. After all, they demand their rights after completing their duties and responsibilities. There was no any circumstance that these graduates gave priority to their demands rather than to their commitment. They all work with full effort, enthusiastically , and even as slaves if what they are getting in return is considered .Such a huge friction and confrontation between these graduates and higher officers has left its destructive impact on the effort to achieve the desired target. Recently, graduates working in different areas under the Ministry of National Defense signed a petition to the prime minister’s office to indicate the existing troubling conditions at the work place. But, the promise given to them was not implemented. Instead the problem escalated in an effort to break apart their unity and harm them for demanding a significant change in Ministry. This problem greatly hindered and prohibited the effective utilization of this useful and trained human resource.
9. As it is explained before, enormous installation and running costs are required to maintain the existence of the university. However, for the sake of holding key administrative power independently, the collapse of the university was accelerated. It was a terrific news for those working enthusiastically to end up the existence of the university as their effort is achieved, while a tragedy for the rest of us. There was no opportunity made available for students, staff members, former graduates, and responsible officials from Ministry of National Defense to discuss and comment on this vital issue before taking this action. Even at this instant, many former graduates, military officials, ministry of Education and other civil organizations haven’t been informed about this heartbreaking decision.

10. There have been several contradicting episodes happening in the college while making a critical decision. Whenever a new commandant is assigned, several experimental decisions will be made. For instance, in almost all military technological institutions in the world, when students graduate with diploma , they will also be awarded Second Lieutenant or an equivalent military rank. Degree-program graduates will be awarded First Lieutenant rank. Once in the past there was an experience to pursue in this fashion, and then it stopped immediately. It is important to remember that all graduates assigned to teach at Defense University, General Buli Technical school, Air Force training school and others have academic ranks above graduate assistant level and most of them reached the Lecturer level. These graduates were consistently asking a revision of their military ranks because much emphasis was given to military aspects rather than the academic issues. They are almost forgotten and lost the kind of academic consideration that should have been given to them.

But since recent times the ruling party has been pressurized by civil service reforms and has raised wages and salaries of government employees. Then a question came whether these graduates should be entitled for the benefit. But the way this issue is resolved is controversial and contradicting to the previous decisions made by higher military officers administering the colleges. It is to bring these graduates from private level to Lieutenant and captain ranks and pay them with their military ranks. It is clear that these graduates will no more raise further questions when the government claims other benefits. Well, there is no question in promoting them, but this decision is made deliberately to decline those little benefits offered by the government. After all, they are more committed than their equivalents at civilian institutions and also equally and even more competent. But they don’t have the right to seek for legal offers. At this point it is important to note the experience that there is always an increase in living expenses associated with the raise in wages and salaries of employees. One group is protected by law while another is even loosing what was having before. But still these graduates believe that priority should be given to address the country’s demand rather than their own needs and aspirations, and that is why they are still serving their country under this desperating and life threatening situation.

To conclude, the existing political, social and other issues in the Ethiopian Defense Force, particularly in those colleges, training schools and the organization as a whole are precarious and unsafe to openly discuss on current affairs, to demand the respect of freedom of speech and human right, and is biased on the sole decision of few and unable to address the demand of the mass military members. It is also focuses on a dividing policy that led to ethnic discrimination. Because of this many trained professionals are detained, faced life threatening challenges, forced to migrate to other countries and still the future is expected to be even more gloomy unless a critical measure is taken to rectify the above mentioned and other problems.