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OBBO: African unity? There are skeletons
in the closet!
07 November, 2011 (By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps nowhere in Africa is the food fight between China and the
West over the continent’s goodies more evident than from the
compound of the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian
capital, Addis Ababa.
To the left of the old AU compound, a new office complex is about
to be completed.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new headquarters of the AU.
It is a gift from the good citizens and government of China, and will
cost a tidy $200 million.
On the edge of the complex, the Sheraton Hotel has brought the
mountain to Mohammad. Now the Big People who come to meet
at the AU can walk over from a fancy hotel to the complex, spared
some of the sore spots of booming Addis Ababa.
Before the driveway to these new digs, is another gift to the AU.
It is from the Germans this time (they who also gave the EAC its
new building in Arusha). It is an office complex being built for the
current hottest kid on the AU block – its Peace and Security
Committee. The Germans are splashing out $50 millon on that.
Stung by suggestions that they are not supporting democracy or
peace in Africa, and that they pay for only concrete and mortar, the
Chinese upped the stakes. They have offered to give the AU some
$500 million for free for peace and security. So there, you have it.
But the more interesting contest casual visitors will not learn of is
invisible — the symbolic one...
The current headquarters of the AU used to be a police training
school. When its predecessor organisation, the Organisation of
African Unity, came to Addis, Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie,
one of the OAU founders, kicked out the cops and gave the place
to Africa.
It was perhaps a befitting gift that the OAU’s first home was at first
a police premises, because their rulers turned most of Africa’s
countries into police states after Independence.
It gets more gruesome. The new office is built on a site that used to
be a prison.
The prison was notorious during the military dictatorship of
Mengistu Haile Mariam as the place where many of the people
arrested in the 1977-78 Red Terror or Qey Shibir were taken.
Anything between 100,000 and 200,000 people are thought to
have been killed.
The Chinese contractors building the office reportedly dug up
hundreds of skeletons from what used to be the backyard of the
prison.
This expensive gift comes at a time when African governments’
contributions to the AU are so shabby that the organisation in is one
of its worst financial crises.
Recently, it took a desperate decision that would, nevertheless,
impress the most hardnosed businessman.
In future, at AU meetings, only water will be free. Participants will
have to pay for their coffee and lunch.
The generally still stingy Chinese — and German — contractors
would understand that. And, indeed, the irony of a grand office
building built over an old site of horror, is something that both the
Chinese and German will not miss either.
It might, however, be lost on some of the African rulers who come
to summit here.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive
editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: cobbo@ke.
nationmedia.com
. Courtesy
in the closet!
07 November, 2011 (By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps nowhere in Africa is the food fight between China and the
West over the continent’s goodies more evident than from the
compound of the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian
capital, Addis Ababa.
To the left of the old AU compound, a new office complex is about
to be completed.
- It will be, by far, the largest and
tallest office complex in Addis
Ababa.
- It will also be among the tallest
buildings anywhere in Africa.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new headquarters of the AU.
It is a gift from the good citizens and government of China, and will
cost a tidy $200 million.
On the edge of the complex, the Sheraton Hotel has brought the
mountain to Mohammad. Now the Big People who come to meet
at the AU can walk over from a fancy hotel to the complex, spared
some of the sore spots of booming Addis Ababa.
Before the driveway to these new digs, is another gift to the AU.
It is from the Germans this time (they who also gave the EAC its
new building in Arusha). It is an office complex being built for the
current hottest kid on the AU block – its Peace and Security
Committee. The Germans are splashing out $50 millon on that.
Stung by suggestions that they are not supporting democracy or
peace in Africa, and that they pay for only concrete and mortar, the
Chinese upped the stakes. They have offered to give the AU some
$500 million for free for peace and security. So there, you have it.
But the more interesting contest casual visitors will not learn of is
invisible — the symbolic one...
The current headquarters of the AU used to be a police training
school. When its predecessor organisation, the Organisation of
African Unity, came to Addis, Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie,
one of the OAU founders, kicked out the cops and gave the place
to Africa.
It was perhaps a befitting gift that the OAU’s first home was at first
a police premises, because their rulers turned most of Africa’s
countries into police states after Independence.
It gets more gruesome. The new office is built on a site that used to
be a prison.
The prison was notorious during the military dictatorship of
Mengistu Haile Mariam as the place where many of the people
arrested in the 1977-78 Red Terror or Qey Shibir were taken.
Anything between 100,000 and 200,000 people are thought to
have been killed.
The Chinese contractors building the office reportedly dug up
hundreds of skeletons from what used to be the backyard of the
prison.
This expensive gift comes at a time when African governments’
contributions to the AU are so shabby that the organisation in is one
of its worst financial crises.
Recently, it took a desperate decision that would, nevertheless,
impress the most hardnosed businessman.
In future, at AU meetings, only water will be free. Participants will
have to pay for their coffee and lunch.
The generally still stingy Chinese — and German — contractors
would understand that. And, indeed, the irony of a grand office
building built over an old site of horror, is something that both the
Chinese and German will not miss either.
It might, however, be lost on some of the African rulers who come
to summit here.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive
editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: cobbo@ke.
nationmedia.com
. Courtesy
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