For Ethiopians, old habits die hard

From The East African, March 3-9, 1997

By Charles Onyango-Obbo

ADDIS ABABA - It is the same old Addis Ababa, though the people have changed. They are not frightened, and they are

better dressed. When I last visited nine years ago, dictator Colonel Haile Mariam was still in charge, throwing his opponents to

be eaten by lions in the dungeon of his palace. Mengistu's rule surpassed itself. Relatives were made to buy back bodies of their

kin who'd been executed by Mengistu's soldiers. When the killers were in a particularly cynical mood, they made people pay

for the bullets with which their relatives had been felled.

The worst came to and end in 1991 when Meles Zenawi took power at the head of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary

Democratic Front, a loose alliance of about 20 different tribal and regional-based political groups. A federal-type constitution

was voted upon in 1994, and in may 1995, Meles was elected Prime Minister.

But old habits die hard. A battle between the old and the new is on. Ethiopians are torn between support for the federal system

and the clamour for the old unitarian one. The disillusionment with the federal system is because Meles is perceived by

critics to have turned it into a "tribalcracy." Of the nine federal regions, there are no prizes for guessing which one is getting the

 best cut of the beef; it's Region One, where Meles and his Tigray people come from. The Tigrinya have replaced Mengistu's

Marxist apparatchiks as the new privileged breed.

    Many parties boycotted the 1995 elections and sections of the intelligentsia and Press continue to reject the Democratic Front's

ethnic-based system. In response, the Front has cracked the whip on opponents of the federal constitutional order. Human rights

 groups estimate that between 10,000 and 18,000 people are detained without trial. Repression of journalists is among the worst

 in the world. With about 20 journalists in jail, Ethiopia is second only to China in locking away scribes. Some measures are

wantonly excessive. Writers from the independent press are not allowed to report even Parliament and lately can't get past the

gates of the legislature. They are excluded from Meles's Press conferences.

People are jailed for reading critical papers in the regions where EPRDF goons run riot. In the long chain of Ethiopian

perversions, the people who determine what some newspapers publish are not the editors but street vendors. Some editors

take their paste-ups to the vendors who then place orders depending on whether they think the headline and pictures chosen

will sell. If they don't like it, they tell the editor to go change or stuff it.  Ethiopia is also still tied in Byzantine red tape and

bureaucracy which is a throw-back from the 19th century, and totally out of place at the dawn of the new millenium.

Everything from paying your water bill to cashing a cheque at the bank can take the better part of a morning.  Yet in spite of all

this, there are hopeful signs. For a city which teems with poor people, the crime rate in Addis is remarkably low. Once ravaged by

famine, Ethiopia's food production has improved significantly. And Zenawi's free market reforms are beginning to seduce large

sums of private capital. On Bole Road, a businessman is building a huge $10 million complex.

     There are many such projects littered around Addis Ababa. That particular building is significant because it contrasts sharply with

 the unimpressive new OAU conference hall. Though the OAU hall is less than half the size of the Bole Road complex, it cost a

mind-boggling $150 million, 15 times more. This new class of shrewd businessmen who know how to stretch a dollar for

10 kilometres had disappeared in Ethiopia. The temptations for them to crawl out of hiding are now too many.  When you arrive in

Addis, you will be told that while soldiers, ramshackle taxis and pickpockets won't kill you, the unhygienic tap water will.

Nevertheless, most of Addis Ababa's 3.5 million are poor. They drink this tap water and brush their teeth with it and they have not

perished. They are a tough and stubborn lot, these Ethiopians. And that is both Meles's blessing and curse.

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