Aid helped to avert disaster
Dereje Hailu Kassa | February 21, 2002
( The Toronto Star )
Re It may be time to rethink aid, Opinion, Feb. 19

Mohamud Hussein Khalif suggests that, “Canada needs to review its
development assistance program for Ethiopia.”

In 1984 and 1985, the last time Canada and the world listened to Khalif’s
kind of advice, 1 million Ethiopians lost their lives.

This time around, Canada did rethink its position and, together with the
international community, helped graciously to avert another human
disaster.

    Today, Canada is actively engaged in
    uplifting the Ethiopian people and influencing
    the country’s government to adopt more
    liberal policies and helping to build
    democratic institutions by providing financial
    and technical aid.

It’s ironic that Khalif, as a Somali advocate, calls Canada’s timely
decision a “most serious policy error” at a time when close to 10 million
Ethiopians, most of them ethnic Somalis, including hundreds of
thousands of those who escaped the senseless clan war in Somalia, are
facing another cycle of drought and famine.

Regarding the amount of aid money Ethiopia is receiving compared to
that of Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, at least a few facts are clear:
Ethiopia has greater population than those four countries combined and
aid agencies can deliver assistance to Ethiopia without being shot at.
Dereje, Hailu Kassa
Toronto
(THE TORONTO STAR Thursday, February 21, 2002 A25)
-------------
It may be time to rethink aid
Mohamud Hussein Khalif
February 19, 2002
( The Toronto Star )
In international diplomatic circles, Canada’s primary distinguishing
features have been a commitment to peacekeeping and disbursement of
development aid based on democratic governance, the rule of law and
respect for human rights.

From the days of Lester Pearson’s prime ministership to the present,
Canada’s record on peacekeeping has been impeccable, with the
exception of the botched Somalia operation in the early 1990’s. Given
that the way the Canadian government dealt with the regiments involved
in the Somalia debacle was firm enough to restore credibility to the
institution of the Armed Forces, one can safely conclude that the
peacekeeping dimension of Canada’s foreign policy remains respectable.

However, a big question mark hangs over Canada’s development aid
policy, especially as regards the Horn of Africa.

In general, Canada continues to fall short, despite recent increases, of its
self-imposed obligation to give 0.7 per cent of its annual GDP in aid
money – a target OECD member countries voluntarily adopted to help the
developing world improve its living standards. Only the Nordic states
have so far been able to make good on this promise. Even so, the portion
of Canada’s official development assistance that goes to the Horn is small
relative to the overall size of the pie.

Eligibility for Canadian assistance is based on the criteria established by
the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

Decision on eligibility are predicated not only on material need but also on
other factors, including the governance behaviour of the recipient states.
As a result, Canada may determine that some countries are ineligible on
the basis of their poor human rights record and lack of democratic
governance. In some few cases, however, one wonders whether these
criteria are applied at all.

One such case is Ethiopia, which receives more Canadian aid than the
allocations for Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia combined. The latest
reports of international human rights agencies paint a gruesome picture of
a regime that preaches one thing, but in fact practices quite another.

The 2001 reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for
instance, contain accounts of detention without trial, extrajudicial killings,
torture and rape across the country. In particular, minority groups such
as the Somalis and the Afars as well as groups “thought” to be opposed
to the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front government
are targeted for punishment and reprisals. The inhumane treatment of the
Ethiopians of Eritrean stock at the hands of the Ethiopian security
apparatus was notoriously harrowing, too.

Not only does Ethiopia have a despicable human rights record internally,
it also engages in meaningless regional conflicts. The war with Eritrea
two years ago over a small piece of wasteland, while close to 10 million
Ethiopians were starving to death, was incomprehensible to anyone. Of
late, skirmishes take place along the Kenyan border on a daily basis.
Members of the Ethiopian regular army cross, in stark violation of
Kenyan sovereignty, over the international boundary killing and taking
civilians hostage.

Relations with neighbouring Sudan have been strained for a long time,
too, though a détente has been in the works, lately Djibouti is relentlessly
bullied over the use of its port on which landlocked Ethiopia depends for
its international trade.

But by far the hardest hit victim of Ethiopia’s aggressive approach to
regional affairs is Somalia. Ravaged by a fratricidal civil war over the past
decade, Somalia has been a battle ground for competing interests of rival
states in the region, most notably Ethiopia and Eritrea which have been
fighting a devastating proxy war for the past three years.

The historical enmity between Somalia and Ethiopia is complemented by
Ethiopia’s need for an outlet to the sea. This can only be realized, in the
eyes of the Ethiopian leadership, by keeping Somalia weak and divided.
Hence the rancorous relationship with the nascent transitional
government in Mogadishu and Ethiopia’s sponsorship of certain factions
opposed to the government of President Abiqassim Salat Hassan.

The question is then on what basis does the Canadian government give
“development” aid to Ethiopia? Of the $63 million given during fiscal year
1994/95, for example, 44.7 percent was donated through bilateral
channels. Given the dismal track record of the regime on development
and democratization, the aid might well end up in the military barracks,
rather than reaching its rightfully intended recipients.

This was a legitimate concern that the West expressed during the war
with Eritrea. It was Claire Short, the British secretary for Overseas
Development who made it clear – in reference to Ethiopia – that giving
aid to a country at war helps increase its defense expenditure.
Congressman Benjamin Gilman of the U.S. also connected the famine in
2000 with the war, as did Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, who
said logistical and bureaucratic red tape in Ethiopia was the main hurdle
to confronting the famine.

Outside Addis Ababa, the capital, Canadian aid is disproportionately
focused on the state of Tigray, the home province of the Prime Minister,
Meles Zenawi, and the state of Amhara. Remote states inhabited by
minority groups receive no Canadian development assistance, except
humanitarian relief during famines.

How this skewed distribution came about is not entirely clear. But in my
opinion, the most serious policy error on the part of Canadian
international development officials was last year’s moratorium on
repaying debt owed to Canada by Ethiopia.

Ottawa announced Jan. 4 last year that Canada was going to suspend
collecting debt service from Ethiopia. It called on all bilateral creditors to
follow Canada’s example. This is a compassionate step on the part of
Canada – but for the wrong country.

Strangely enough, Canada was jumping the gun in announcing the
moratorium on Ethiopia’s debt. Ethiopia at that point had yet to be cleared
for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries program by the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund. In other words, Ethiopia had not
satisfied the requirements of the program, as was the case with other
African countries.

What this suggests is that Canada needs to review its development
assistance program for Ethiopia and to adhere to its fundamental principle
of tying aid to democratic rule and protection of human rights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mohamud Hussein Khalif is a member of The Star’s community editorial
board.

( THE TORONTO STAR Thursday, February 19, 2002 A22 )
All rights reserved.
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