The legacy of Meles Zenawi

I recently obtained a somewhat grainy, black and white photograph dated 14 December 1935. It shows a long line of men, walking down a dusty street in Addis Ababa. It is entitled ‘“The sinews of war”: rich merchants bring bags of money to finance the Emperor Haile Selassie's doomed attempt to halt the Italian invasion’. As the caption indicates, the money is carried by slaves. Mentioning Ethiopian slavery at the start of an assessment of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi may seem a little odd, but it is pertinent to recall just how far and how fast Ethiopia has been transformed.1

The death of Meles Zenawi in a Belgian hospital was announced on 21 August 2012. This was less than four decades after the Derg toppled Haile Selassie in September 1974. Appalling suffering followed, with the Red Terror, the famines and Ethiopia's wars in Eritrea and Somalia, yet Ethiopian society has changed almost beyond recognition. In the past 40 years Ethiopia has been transformed from a stagnant, ossified society dominated by the nobility and the church into a modern developmental state. It registered gross domestic product growth of 8.8% a year between 2000 and 2010.2 Any assessment of the part played by Prime Minister Meles; revolutionary, statesman and autocrat, must acknowledge his role in this extraordinary transformation.

This article focuses on three main elements: ethnic federalism, which was central to Meles's rule, the development strategies that he pursued and the foreign policy that was the bedrock of his Western support. This is not a biography of the former leader. Others have chronicled his role in the leadership of the Tigray People's Liberation Party (TPLF), the founding of the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray (the core party that controlled the TPLF) and the adoption of a hardline ideology that looked to Albania as a model (see Young 1997, 134 ff.). It will suffice to say that he was a towering intellect, who was generous with his time for foreign reporters, like myself, while remote from his own population.3 Unlike the emperor, who had a reputation for driving through the streets of Addis Ababa, receiving the petitions of his subjects, Meles Zenawi was remote and austere. He was seldom seen in public except on official occasions.

Ethnic federalism

Ethiopia, with its 93 million people, is a nation of minorities (Central Intelligence Agency 2012). The largest – the Oromo – are officially 34.5% of the population. They are followed by the Amhara (26.9%) and Somali (6.2%). The Tigray people are the fourth largest minority, with just 6.1% of the population.

The question that has been central to Ethiopian concerns for more than a century has been how its 80 or so ethnic groups should live together. There were three attempts to resolve this issue. The first, introduced by Emperor Menelik (1889–1913) and elaborated under Haile Selassie (1930–1974), attempted to create a unitary state on the basis of cultural assimilation. This entailed using Amharic as the sole language of instruction and public discourse and Orthodox Christianity as the core culture of Ethiopian national identity (Habtu 2003, p. 10). The second, led by the Derg, established an Institute for the Study of Nationalities in 1983, in an attempt to find a Marxist-Leninist answer to the question of ethnicity within a unitary state (ibid., p. 11). The third – and current – attempt to resolve the issue was introduced by the TPLF, which came to support a unitary state, in which ethnic nationalism based on language and cultural diversity was combined with powerful centralised control.

The TPLF itself grew out of a desire to fight the poverty, lack of investment and denigration of the people of Tigray, who saw themselves as marginalised by Amhara chauvinism. It began as a nationalist organisation – its 1976 manifesto calling for the ‘establishment of an Independent democratic republic of Tigray’ (Young 1997, p. 99). This was soon dropped and the TPLF began considering what form of state would allow a small nationality like its own to transform a multi-ethnic nation state of the size and complexity of Ethiopia. By 1981 the movement was talking of a ‘voluntary integration of nationalities whose relations are based on equality and mutual advantages’ (Young 1997, p. 100; emphasis in original).

Just how important this was for the TPLF can be seen from its fraught but vital relationship with its some-time Eritrean allies in the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Although the Eritreans had provided early assistance to the TPLF in the mid 1970s, the relationship turned sour. By the mid 1980s these differences culminated in a public exchange of insults – with the EPLF defined as ‘social imperialist’ by the TPLF. The EPLF in turn labelled the TPLF ‘childish’. This masked a serious theoretical difference with major political ramifications for the national question in Ethiopia (Duffield and Prendergast 1994, p. 100).

The issue was originally whether or not self-determination should be allowed up to, and including, secession. The TPLF recognised Eritrea's unique status as a former colonial state. But they also came to promote the right to secession of the various nationalities within Ethiopia and – far more controversially – of those within Eritrea as well. During its exchange of polemics with the EPLF in 1986–87, the TPLF even stated that ‘a truly democratic’ Eritrea would have to respect ‘the right of its own nationalities up to and including secession’ (People's Voice 1986, p. 12).

This infuriated and appalled the EPLF, who argued that it was precisely because they were a former colonial state that they had the right to independence. Its response was to argue that Ethiopian nationalities had a right to self-determination, but not to independence, as this was conditional on a colonial experience (Adulis 1985). The EPLF was very aware that any widening of the definition of self-determination to include independence would detract from Eritrea's special status, as a colonially defined territory. Moreover, giving Eritrean nationalities rights to secede would also jeopardise the future cohesion of Eritrea, not least because both the Tigrayan and Afar peoples live on both sides of the border.

The TPLF argued that the EPLF's refusal to recognise the right of its own nationalities to secede was an example of its undemocratic nature. For this reason the TPLF came to regard its relationship with the EPLF as tactical, rather than enduring, and made links with other Eritrean groups. According to EPLF documents, the TPLF's flirtation with other movements came as a surprise and a disappointment and led to a rupture in their alliance.4

The EPLF decided to teach the TPLF a brutal lesson. In June 1985, at the height of the famine that was devastating the Horn of Africa, the EPLF cut the TPLF's supply lines to Sudan. They did this by closing the road that passed through Eritrea, thereby denying the Tigrayan people access to food aid at a crucial juncture. It was a drastic measure indeed. Although nothing was said in public at the time, it is not hard to imagine the animosity that this generated. The TPLF responded with characteristic efficiency, mobilising 100,000 peasants to drive an alternative route through to Sudan that did not go via Eritrea.

While the EPLF leadership has refused to speak about these events, Tigrayans remember it with great bitterness. As one put it: ‘the EPLF behaviour was a savage act … I do not hesitate to categorise it as a “savage act”. It must be recorded in history like that!’5

Despite this rupture the imperatives of war continued to drive both movements back into each other's arms. By 1987 both fronts had won considerable military victories, but further advances required co-operation. In April 1988, after four days of discussions in Khartoum, a joint statement was issued, indicating that their differences had been overcome. It was at this time that the Tigrayans suggested that the border should be demarcated. The Eritreans persuaded them to postpone this until after the defeat of the Ethiopian regime. It was to prove to be a crucial mistake. Yet at the time it seemed insignificant, and from then until the overthrow of the Derg, the TPLF and EPLF were allies once more.

Military co-operation led to military success. When the Eritreans finally took Asmara in May 1991 the TPLF marched into Addis Ababa, supported by EPLF armoured units. The movements had forged strong bonds. Differences remained, but there appeared every chance that these could be overcome, given the goodwill that existed. Agreements were made in 1991 and 1993 allowing for the free movement of labour, for Eritrea's use of Ethiopian currency, the birr, and for Ethiopian to use of the port of Assab to minimise the effects of its loss of a coastline.

By the time the TPLF came to power in May 1991 it had already decided how it would rule. In the late 1980s it organised a coalition of ethnically based organisations through which it would run the country: the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front or EPRDF. This is a brief, but accurate assessment of the Front: ‘The EPRDF is a coalition of four ethnic parties (from the main regions: Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, and SNNPR) dominated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)’ (Human Rights Watch 2010, p. 13).

Alongside these ethnically based political formations went individual ethnic identification. For some, particularly in the rural areas, this was not difficult, since they lived within their ethnic group. For townspeople this was often no easy task, since many families had either left their ethnic identities behind, or inter-married. Despite this, they were forced to assume an ethnicity some no longer believed in:

The EPRDF reconfigured the empire-state to create nine ethnic-based territorial units, to the great dismay of many people, especially among the Amhara elite, the Staatsvolk (statebearing nationality) of Ethiopia…. During their everyday transactions with government offices, Ethiopian citizens are required to state their ethnic affiliation, ‘correct’ affiliation being one based on identification with one of the 84 officially given ethnic categories. ‘Correct’ identification itself is based on mother tongue or household language use or descent. The imposition of ascribed ethnic classification is a source of common complaint, among (de-ethnicized) urban folk who wish to self-identify as Ethiopian only and among those offspring who are from parents belonging to two different ethnic groups. (Habtu 2003, pp. 21–22)

From the time he came to power in May 1991 it was clear that Meles would brook no real opposition. The EPRDF governed for a brief period in alliance with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) (Latta 2004, p. 39). The unity did not last and by July 1991 the OLF and TPLF forces were involved in open confrontations, with the OLF leaving the government. Since then rights of Ethiopians have been increasingly restricted. Elections have been rigged, journalists jailed and opposition leaders driven into exile. Human Rights Watch concluded that:

Except for a brief period during the 2005 general election, the government has severely restricted the rights to freedom of expression and association, arbitrarily detained political opponents, intimidated journalists, shuttered media outlets, and made independent human rights and elections monitoring practically impossible. Citizens are unable to speak freely, organize political activities, or challenge government policies without fear of reprisal. Key state institutions and representative bodies, such as parliament and woreda and kebele councils, have become politicized and fallen under the ruling party's control. (Human Rights Watch 2010, pp. 14–15)

Ethnic federalism was meant to free the Tigrayan people from the fear of Amhara domination. Instead it has left the TPLF leadership defensive and paranoid, suspecting every form of dissent of being the first sign of treason. They look fearfully at the outside world, believing (with some justification) that the well-endowed diaspora is plotting their overthrow. As one TPLF cadre is quoted as saying: ‘We have stopped pretending democracy any more; this is a struggle for our survival’ (Aalen and Tronvoll 2008, p. 120).

The developmental state

This curtailment of freedom was no accident. In his lengthy presentation, entitled African development: dead ends and new beginnings, the prime minister argued passionately that agriculture had to be the driving force for development (See Zenawi, n.d.). ‘We have shown that agriculture is and must be the engine of accelerated growth at least in the initial period of the process of development’, he wrote. However, development would only succeed if it was not inhibited by what he described as ‘patronage and rent-seeking’.

‘Rent seekers’ are the bête noire of the Ethiopian government. They are seen as cronies and crooks who use a variety of dubious means to extract profits from the wider underdeveloped society. ‘Rent-seekers’ thus defined make profits in three ways: through connections with officials; as importers/agents of a foreign company; or by hoarding consumer goods.6

While Meles indicated that democracy would be preferable, with parties contesting elections and replacing one another, he considered this was unlikely to produce the consensus necessary to allow the necessary to drive development (Zenawi, n.d.):

Technically policy stability and continuity could be achieved even when parties regularly replace each other in governing the country. But this can be so only where such a solid consensus among politicians and the population on fundamental policy has been achieved and where politics is confined to dealing with trivialities and personalities. Such a situation is very unlikely to emerge in a developing country. In addition politics based on personalities can easily degenerate to patronage politics. The most likely scenario for a state that is both democratic and developmental to emerge is in the form of a dominant party or dominant coalition democracy.

For Meles the EPRDF represented just such a dominant coalition and was ideally suited to provide the ‘solid consensus’ he considered so essential to development. African development: dead ends and new beginnings was aimed at a Western audience. At home the prime minister was considerably more direct. He argued that party control was vital for development, which required what he defined as revolutionary democracy. In a statement redolent of George Orwell's 1984, he declared: “When Revolutionary Democracy permeates the entire society, individuals will start to think alike and all persons will cease having their own independent outlook. In this order, individual thinking becomes simply part of collective thinking because the individual will not be in a position to reflect on concepts that have not been prescribed by Revolutionary Democracy.”7 Without this degree of control, Meles believed there was little chance of successfully transforming Ethiopia through rapid agricultural development, since the ‘rent seeking’ elite would undermine the process of accumulation.

The EPRDF had given priority to ‘agricultural development-led industrialization’ in its economic policy framework since the mid 1990s.8 Yet the highlands from which the prime minister came seemed an unlikely engine for growth. Vast areas were denuded of vegetation, severely eroded and farms subdivided into tiny plots, worked by peasant farmers who still used rudimentary implements, including wooden ploughs. How could agriculture be revolutionized in these areas without disrupting the social fabric of the highlands – the core constituency of the TPLF?

The answer was twofold: carry out the agricultural revolution in other parts of Ethiopia, with the assistance of foreign capital. The results have been dramatic. The World Bank's 2011 report shows that of 406 large-scale (500 hectares or more) land projects agreed during the five years prior to December 2009, 23 involved foreign investors.9 In a study for Chatham House, Jason Mosely goes on the point out that in so doing, the EPRDF concentrated its agricultural effort on areas of Ethiopia only included in the country in the past 100 years. These ‘peripheral’ territories are less politically sensitive than the highlands of Ethiopia. The complaints of the communities that are displaced in the process can be more easily contained or ignored – particularly if they are pastoralists. Among the foreign beneficiaries of these land allocations, Mosely highlights:

•	10,000 hectares allocated to the Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi to grow rice and other crops in Gambella.
•	54,000 hectares allocated to the Ethiopian government's own Tendaho Sugar Factory in the Awash area of the Afar region, to grow sugar cane.
•	40,000 hectares allocated for biofuel production to the Indian company, Emami Biotech, in Oromia.
•	54,000 hectares allocated to the Indian Shapooji Pallonji Group to produce biofuel in Benishangul Gumuz.
•	10,000 hectares allocated to the Indian company, White Fields Cotton, in the South Omo region.
•	100,000 hectares allocated to the Indian company, Karuturi Global, for rose and crop production in Gambella.

The cost to the communities involved in the redistribution of their lands to foreign investors has been and will be immense. Human Rights Watch has calculated that by 2013 the government plans to resettle 1.5 million people in four regions: Gambella, Afar, Somali, and Benishangul-Gumuz (Human Rights Watch 2012a, p. 2). Much of this displacement has been involuntary, with communities forcibly relocated from their villages, says Human Rights Watch.

This process has been replicated in the other major developmental driver initiated under Prime Minister Meles – the building of dams. Two of the largest dams in Africa were started while he was in office – the Gibe III dam on the Lower Omo river and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, bordering on Sudan. The Gibe III was initially to be financed by the World Bank and European Investment Bank, but they pulled out, to be replaced by the Chinese (Human Rights Watch 2012b, p. 36). Again Human Rights Watch catalogues forced removals of communities, who have been left in perilous conditions.

Meles Zenawi's attitude to the peoples of these remote and peripheral regions is summed up by a statement he made in 2011:

In the coming five years there will be a very big irrigation project and related agricultural development in this zone. I promise you that, even though this area is known as backward in terms of civilization, it will become an example of rapid development. (Human Rights Watch 2012b, p. 30)

This attitude towards ‘backward’ areas can be contrasted with Meles's response to the needs of the people of his home region – Tigray. Here the TPLF has gone out of its way to develop the industrial base without resorting to the mass relocation of the population. This work has centred on the work of the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT).10 Founded in 1995, it brought under its auspices a number of companies established by high-ranking members of the TPLF. Its stated goals were to use its resources to benefit the people of Tigray and provide an income for the elderly, orphans and the families of TPLF fighters. Its companies were involved in the production of everything from cement to leather goods, but its most profitable venture was TransEthiopia. Using the fleet of trucks donated to the TPLF during the 1984–85 famine by aid agencies, it became the preferred provider of transport for donated grain provided annually to the country – most notably by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its fleet of 458 trucks have cornered much of this lucrative market.

As an Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Communication report accepted: ‘New individual companies may be discouraged to enter the market because of the presence of share companies deriving from regional development associations … which could be potentially favoured for public tenders. There is a rather pervasive discouragement to owners operating independently.’11

The economic legacy of Meles Zenawi is complex. On the one hand Ethiopia has achieved some of the most rapid growth rates in Africa for a non-oil producing country. Addis Ababa is a boom town, with sparkling new buildings and rapid urbanization. There have been very substantial investments in the country's infrastructure – notably in dams, but also in roads and railways. On the other hand the peasant economy remains largely intact, while foreign investment has been drawn into the agricultural sector, but at a terrible cost to the lives of more than a million people who have been or will be displaced. All this has been achieved by keeping a tight rein on political freedoms and human rights, while giving privileged access to resources to the prime minister's core constituency in Tigray.

Certainly it will be for his economic legacy that Meles will wish to be remembered. In the early hours of 12 September 2007 Meles welcomed in the new millennium, according to Ethiopia's Ge'ez calendar, with this prophecy: ‘A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they shall say the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia’ (Ethiopian Press Agency, 19 September 2012).

Foreign policy

Whatever doubts the United States, Britain and the rest of the Western world had about Meles's human rights record, he was an important ally in the Horn of Africa. Not surprisingly his death was marked with fulsome praise from both the White House and 10 Downing Street. President Obama said that the prime minister ‘deserves recognition for his lifelong contribution to Ethiopia's development, particularly his unyielding commitment to Ethiopia's poor’.12 The president went on to describe his gratitude for ‘Prime Minister Meles's service for peace and security in Africa, his contributions to the African Union, and his voice for Africa on the world stage’. David Cameron reacted in much the same vein: ‘Prime Minister Meles was an inspirational spokesman for Africa on global issues and provided leadership and vision on Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan’.13

London and Washington had lost a critical, if sometimes awkward, regional friend. The tone of the relationship was already established in March 1998, when President Clinton toured Africa, describing Meles as one of a ‘new generation’ of leaders, with whom the United States could do business. In August of that year the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed with the loss of 223 lives by al-Qaeda supporters. The Horn of Africa became an important front in the US fight against Islamic fundamentalism – a status confirmed after the attack on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. US forces were deployed to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti as part of what was described as ‘Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa.’

In the years that followed, relations between Addis Ababa and Washington grew in importance. The emergence of the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia and then the growing strength of al-Shabaab, threatening to capture Mogadishu, were viewed with deep disquiet by both Ethiopian and the United States. In 2006 it became clear that Meles was considering sending forces into Somalia to end what he saw as a threat from Islamic fundamentalism. The United States attempted to dissuade him. This can be clearly discerned in a US embassy cable from Addis Ababa released by Wikileaks, dated 8 December 2006.

In five meetings with Prime Minister Meles and separate meetings with Foreign Minister Seyoum and ENDF Chief of Staff General Samora during the week of 27 November, the ambassador and US visitors, including General Abizaid and Senator Feingold, raised the need for Ethiopia to be cautious in taking any action in Somalia. General Abizaid articulated that Meles had time on his side and that a rush into conflict would yield immediate victories against ‘technicals’ (trucks mounted with machine-guns), but not enhance security for Ethiopia.

These efforts failed to restrain the Ethiopians and by 22 December Ethiopian troops were across the border and heading for Mogadishu. Once engaged, the United States supported Meles as best it could. This has, reportedly, included developing a military presence inside Ethiopia itself.14

If Meles's relations with the West were strong, his ties with the rest of the region were also generally amicable, with one notable exception: Eritrea. As indicated at the start of this article, the TPLF and EPLF had once been close allies as well as enemies. There was much that had united them in the fight to overthrow the Derg. In May 1993 Meles visited Asmara to celebrate the formal independence of Eritrea. In his speech he warned his hosts that if they were to forge a new relationship they should not ‘scratch the wounds’ of the past. His warning was timely, but it fell on deaf ears. As the years went by relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea deteriorated and on 6 May 1998 they were to be at war (for a discussion of the causes of the war, see Plaut 2004). The conflict was to cost at least 100,000 lives and was ended with the peace treaty signed in Algiers on 12 December 2000.

The treaty established a boundary commission to establish the border between the two countries – the issue that had, at least ostensibly, triggered the war. Both sides agreed to abide by its ruling. As Article 4, clause 15 put it: ‘The parties agree that the delimitation and demarcation determinations of the Commission shall be final and binding.’ The treaty was clear and unambiguous, yet when the commission delivered its ruling in April 2002 the Ethiopian government refused to implement its provisions, instead insisting on further talks.

Meles indicated, in an interview with the author, that he distinguished between the delimitation decision (which he said he accepted) and demarcation (which he insisted could not take place without further negotiations).15 He said that any demarcation that cut villages in half would provoke another war and – as he put it – this would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, something he was not prepared to do.

In January 2006, in a final attempt to end the stalemate, the US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer decided to lead a high-level team to both Asmara and Addis Ababa. She said that her aim was to see the border situation for herself. In the event although Eritrea provided visas for her team, they refused to allow her to visit the border, and that leg of the mission was cancelled. Ms Frazer went instead to Ethiopia, and was taken from there to see the disputed frontier. She also held talks with Meles Zenawi.

In the end the obduracy of Eritrea played into Meles's hands. Asmara refused to give an inch, insisting instead that there was nothing to be discussed and that all that was required was for the border determination to be implemented. The international community, in need of Ethiopian support against al-Qaeda and fed up with Eritrea's intransigence, abandoned attempts to resolve the border issue. Eritrea hit back by supporting al-Shabaab's attacks on Somalia's Transitional Government in Mogadishu. It also aided Ogadeni and Oromo movements fighting the Ethiopian government. These attempts to undermine Meles were largely ineffective, but provoked the United Nations to impose increasingly stringent sanctions against Eritrea – the latest of which came into force in December 2011.16

Conclusion

Meles Zenawi was a complex and contradictory figure, like almost any major international leader. He was a statesman of real stature, representing Africa with considerable skill at international forums, including the Africa Commission, established by Britain's Tony Blair. He was successful in bringing a considerable degree of internal peace to his country, even if this was disrupted by occasional attacks by movements representing other ethnic groups. Meles also played a major role in attracting international investment and development aid, which succeeded in placing Ethiopia on a developmental path.

However, he was no democrat. Meles acted against his enemies, both inside his own movement (the TPLF) and in the wider Ethiopian society with real ruthlessness. He established a form of ethnic nationalism that will have implications for his country for years to come. Ethiopia emerged from his rule as the most powerful military force in the Horn of Africa, with its military having played a considerable part in containing militant Islam both in Ethiopia and Somalia. Relations with Eritrea remain locked in a frozen conflict, with tens of thousands of troops along their mutual border, but relations with Ethiopia's other neighbours remain generally warm.

Barry Malone, former Reuters correspondent in Addis Ababa, recalls asking Meles in 2010 whether he ever imagined he would be in power for so much of his life (Malone 2012).‘That was clearly not what I expected’, he said, with a rare smile. ‘It's happened. I don't regret it but I just hope that, at the end of it all, it will have been worth it.’

Notes

The Italian invaders made good use of the propaganda value of the issue – maintaining that they freed 420,000 slaves when they conquered the country. It was only in August 1942 that the emperor finally abolished passed Slavery (Abolition) Proclamation No. 22. See Goitom (2012).

World Bank, Ethiopia at a glance, 29 March 2012. For a description of Ethiopia before the overthrow of the emperor, see Halliday and Molyneux (1981, 62 ff.).

He took an MBA with the Open University in Britain, attaining some of the highest marks ever recorded, according to one of his tutors.

EPLF Political Report and NDP, March 1987, pp. 148–149. Quoted in Young (1996, p. 115).

Tekleweini Assefa, head of the Relief Society of Tigray, interviewed in Alemseged Abbay, Identity jilted or re-imagining identity? (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1998), p 129.

EPRDF, ‘The development lines of revolutionary democracy’. Unofficial English translation of Chapter 3 of an Amharic original ‘Revolutionary versus liberal democracy’, Addis Ababa, 2001. Cited in Vaughan Gebremichael (2011).

Meles Zenawi, ‘Perspectives and “Bonapartism”’, in The Gimgema papers, 2001, cited in Human Rights Watch (2010, p. 14).

See Government of Ethiopia, Growth and transformation plan, 2010–14.

Jason Mosely, Peace, bread and land: agricultural investments in Ethiopia and the Sudans (London: Chatham House, 2012), p. 5. ‘Of nearly 1.2 million ha involved, 607,000 were allocated to foreign investors. These projects were inventoried in only five of Ethiopia's nine administrative regions: Amhara; Benishangul Gumuz; Gambella; Oromia; and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR)’.

This section of the paper is drawn from Vaughan and Gebremichael (2011).

Cited in Sarah Vaughan and Kjetil Tronvoll, Ethiopia, SIDA report, Country Strategy 2003–2007, March 2003, p. 56. Stockholm: SIDA.

White House Press statement, 21August 2012.

Statement from the office of the British Prime Minister, 21 August 2012.

‘The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding US-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, US military officials said. The Air Force has invested millions of dollars to upgrade an airfield in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where it has built a small annex to house a fleet of drones that can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. The Reapers began flying missions earlier this year over neighboring Somalia, where the United States and its allies in the region have been targeting al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda.’ Washington Post, 27 October 2011. Available from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html [Accessed 31 October 2012].

Interview with author, September 2005.

UN News, 5 December 2011. Available from: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40628&Cr=eritrea&Cr1 [Accessed 30 October 2012].