Coming only six years after the Watergate calamity, Ronald Reagan was
almsot literally “the man on a horseback” who rode triumphantly into
Washington to save the disconsolate Republican Party (and the
country, many of his partisans insist). His victory was celebrated in
many capitals around the world, too; but with no more passion than in
Pretoria, South Africa, where a morally bankrupt apartheid
precariously held sway.
By the time Reagan secured the presidency in the early eighties, UN
resolution 1761, which called for comprehensive sanctions against
South Africa, was two decades old. But because the practicality of
sanctions, if not the moral grounds, was adamantly disputed by Western
countries, the resolution was not implemented by most rich countries
upon whom the South African economy — the largest and best in
Africa — relied on for its vitality. As British PM Harold Wilson, of the
Labor Party, opined in 1964, two years after the resolution was
passed, “even if the sanctions are fully effective, they would harm
the people we are most concerned about — the (black) Africans.”
Reagan came to office not merely as a reluctant sanctions disclaimer
in the tradition of Wilson, but a keen ally of South Africa against
the spreading influence of the Soviet Union in Africa; delighting and
invigorating the ruling National Party in Pretoria. Instead of
sanctions, Chester Crocker, Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for
Africa,, formulated a policy of constructive engagement; which
envisioned using incentives to push South Africa away (slowly, he
admitted) from apartheid.
But only three years later, a fatal blow against constructive
engagement was to be delivered courtesy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
who called it “ an abomination, an unmitigated disaster” during a
widely publicized visit to the US. The alliance (against communism)
between Washington and Pretoria, he said, was “immoral and evil.”
Graciously but intractably rebuffed by “realists” in Washington, the
Archbishop, a Nobel peace prize winner, returned home with few
converts to his credit within the Reagan administration. But his
effect on the rest of the nation, including the Republican Party, was
so powerful it took only two more years before a Republican controlled
Congress was to overturn a Presidential veto and impose devastating
sanctions; which was one of the key ingredients that made a peaceful
transition to democracy possible. In fact, the subsequent
unconditional negotiation between the South African government and the
ANC, the largest black liberation movement, would have been
implausible without the burden of sanctions on the National Party.
Thus came the abrupt end of constructive engagement, toxically tainted
by association with apartheid, from the official discourse of US
foreign policy. But almost three decades later, it is still stealthily
the defining theme of many Western countries policies in multitude of
authoritarian countries—Ethiopia being one of the best examples.
By the unanimous reckoning of donor countries embassies in Addis, the
entire span of EPRDF’s two decades rule falls miserably short of
international standards. Eighteen years ago, one year after the advent
of the EPRDF to power, when Ethiopia’s first multi-party local
election was held absent major opposition groups, notably the OLF, a
key coalition partner of the transitional government then in power,
the shortcoming was noted but tolerated amiably. Constructive
engagement, by now rebranded quite insipidly as “quite diplomacy”, was
deemed the best response. As such, bilateral and multilateral aid to
Ethiopia rose phenomenally between 1992 1998, reaching peak levels in
both average and total levels, when an unexpected war with Eritrea put
a stop to a rising momentum. But even the war did not deter two
countries, the US and UK , from sending more aid than ever to
Ethiopia; no doubt anxiously hoping that it will buy them some
leverage.
However, the EPRDF doggedly snubbed attempts to influence its
internal policies. That something was amiss with donors’ strategy was
vivid as early as 1995, three years after the first election, when a
nationwide election under a new constitution, again held in the
absence of major opposition groups, was marred by serious electoral
irregularities as donor countries looked on helplessly. An additional
three years later, an unexpected war was to break between Ethiopia and
Eritrea, and the ultimate test for “quiet diplomacy”, buttressed by years of
diplomatic, political and financial investments, summarily crystallized.
And much to the exasperation of its architects it failed the test wretchedly. The
EPRDF remained impenetrable, oblivious, and perhaps even contemptuous,
of its international partners. The policy of engagement had clearly
and dramatically failed. It was apparent that sooner or later a
radical alteration of policy was inescapable.
But something of truly momentous proportion was to happen in the
meantime: 9/11. And everything — that is, everything! — changed.
Unsurprisingly, and quite reasonably, the war on terror was thrust to
center stage; with anarchic Somalia elevating the relationship between
the US (the largest and most influential donor) and Ethiopia to a new
level of urgency and comradeship. But tragically, with the instinctive
propensity of the Bush administration to hysteria, all other issues
were not merely downgraded to lower levels but were doomed to
irrelevance. This single-issue centered relationship was to culminate
in the mid-2000s, at the height of Ethiopia’s backslide to overt
authoritarianism in the aftermath of the 2005 elections, when Ethiopia
became the largest recipient of US military assistance in the Horn,
with more than 100 US military personnel training and working with the
Ethiopian military. The US and Ethiopian military ties included, in
the words of a Pentagon spokesperson (during the Bush presidency),
“intelligence sharing, arms aid and training that gives Ethiopians the
capacity to defend borders, intercept terrorists and,” — be prepared
for this — “weapons of mass destruction.”
With the advent of a new administration in the US, this time
instinctively but not dogmatically wary of single-issue dominated
relationships, aid bureaucracies, who overwhelmingly favor
continuation of present policies, had to brace for renewed calls for
reevaluation. Changing gear, a new line of argument was popularized,
which maintains that Ethiopia is one of handful countries where aid
money is disbursed transparently and efficiently; unlike the rest of
Africa where much of it is squandered by corrupt officials. But
independent researches have since gone to refute the assertion. The
researches show that a substantial potion of aid money poured in to
Ethiopia has been diverted to buy support and vote for the ruling
party, admittedly a morally less reprehensible crime than outright
corruption; but still a terrible waste of scarce funds that even donor
countries could ill-afford to throw away indefinitely. And more
damningly, Transparency International, the international corruption
watchdog, ranks Ethiopia at 126, below Nigeria at 121, in its latest
corruption perception indexes (2009)
The “results” of election 2010 has profoundly shocked donor countries
(and even aid bureaucracies), too. There is now less resistance to a
reevaluation of policy. Perhaps the only remaining hurdle is the
lingering suspicion that the gains of the past few years will be
reversed and that the poor will suffer disproportionately. These are
legitimate concerns that need to be addressed thoroughly and
intelligently. But no nation has democratized without some pain and
sacrifice. The public knows this, and informal surveys show it
overwhelmingly supporting a link between aid and democratization. If
the donors are serious about the peaceful and legal means to change
that they speak much about, this is the time to step in and support
it. It is time for donors to stop financing the making of a one party
state.
