New York has hustled and bustled with heads of state and delegations visiting the city to attend the 68th UN General Assembly. Ethiopia's PM Hailemariam Desalegn and Foreign Minster Dr. Tedros Adhanom each made speeches on themes relating to sustainable development, conflict and security in Ethiopia and Africa. The PM spoke as a head of state and as chairperson of the African Union during the General Assembly "Debate", while the FM Dr. Tedros Adhanom spoke during the after party by Global Citizen Festival,an anti-poverty advocacy concert ambitiously campaigning to end extreme poverty in 2030, at Central Park, New York. This analysis focuses on unpacking for readers how the two leaders of the known autocratic and genocidal Ethiopian state went to great heights using the international opportunity afforded them to take a domestic version of their propaganda to international levels.
Making speeches at such important global venues is assumed to be a "deliberative process" that influences UN policy and decision-making. Because of the global reach of their speeches, we cannot take the speeches very lightly. The speakers had single purpose in minds when they delivered two speeches that relied on a fundamentally similar narrative framework: Ethiopia's economic growth and its asserted "success" in meeting the Millennium Development Goal on child morality, the promotion of a false sense of peace and tranquility while the country is in ever-increasing turbulence in reality because of the excessive repressions in Oromia, Ogaden, SNNP and other regions of the empire. Those who have ever watched Ethiopian Television, there is nothing new in what the leaders claimed. We heard incessant propaganda like that for the last 22 years of Tigray domination of Ethiopian politics and economy via the fake coalition known as the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Tigrean People Liberation Front (TPLF) is the engine of this totalitarian party. Tired of such propaganda back home, some have even broken their TV and radio sets.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom's "Public Diplomacy" at Global Citizen
Festival employed what appeared to be an innocuous sense of humor as way of connecting with the audience. The Minster preached the importance of diversity to New Yorkers and told them how Ethiopia's economy is growing and how Ethiopia met its MDG "3 years in advance of the 2015 deadline." The hard fact about preaching diversity to audiences like New Yorkers is aimed to hide the reality that his regime not only suppresses diversity for people different from Amhara and Tigire ethnies such as Oromo in Ethiopia, but also hides it is genocidal aggression towards them. Predictably, the aim of the speech was to hide and misrepresent the brutality of the Ethiopian "government" and to paint a rosy picture about the genocidal sate. Tedros demonstrated that he felt satisfied when he used the opportunity to misrepresent and mislead the so-called "global citizens" (I wonder if they consider themselves such). The Minster could not hide his excitement when he immediately took to his Twitter account on a smart phone and pic-tweeted:
For UN to facilitate, and for Global Citizen Festival to give a hot mic to a leader of one of Horn of Africa's sadistically tyrannical Ethiopia, which murders tens of thousands of Oromos alone, jails and tortures tens of thousands of Oromos alone, exiles millions, impoverishes and starves millions of others, is nauseatingly offensive to our collective moral character. If the the more than 75,000 New Yorkers the Minster addressed knew the atrocity crimes that his regime commits in Oromia and Ogaden, it would shock their moral character that someone brought a speaker from a government that persecutes others based on ethnicity. They would probably run out of Central Park if they knew a representative of Nazi-regime type from Ethiopia was speaking to them. Most of the free and democratic New Yorkers had no idea that they were being exposed to speech from someone whose state practices genocide and slavery; where there is no concept of citizenship even in the 21st century when other people are beginning to rally behind a dubious and new idea of "global citizenship."Addressed a crowd of more than 75,000 #NewYorkers about #Ethiopia #Africa who are attending a #GlobalCitizen concert pic.twitter.com/qq44kfaK5o
After being introduced by Jeff Sachs, a Columbia University economist and a supporter of the Tigirean hegemony in Ethiopia, as "an absolutely amazing leader....", FM Dr. Tedros Adhanom, an absolute con artist for his regime, claimed:
"I bring you peace and good will from Ethiopia and Africa...The reason I was invited here is to tell you the success of Ethiopia and Africa. Ethiopia has done lots of strides in economic, political and social fronts. In economic growth, it has registered more than 10 percent for the last ten years. It has already achieved MDG for under 5 mortality rate 3 years in advance of the 2015 deadline...Ethiopia and Africa are on the rise...The other reason you should visit Ethiopia is because everybody comes from Africa..."The direct quote from the speech illustrates how the FM employed core elements of common pro-regime propaganda strategy to swindle the New York audience. Most of his assertions are incorrect and sometimes foolhardy, including his inability to distinguish between models of New York as melting pot (very outdated) from a new "salad bowl" concepts of diversity. It made him look foolish when he claimed that everyone is from Africa in front of NYC crowd who would at least know that is not true.
Claims relating to meeting MDG goals on reducing child morality are also very deeply questionable as it is very likely that Ethiopia furnished the numbers and UNICEF just run with with it like a rabbit without a second thought.
As far as the common 10% fabricated economic growth figure goes, some serious researchers have found out that in fact, it is a myth in works such as "The Myth of Africa's Rise," It is known already that simple presence of GDP and increase in trade volumes are not economic development, according to Rick Rowden (2013). Besides, there is little manufacturing as evidence of economic growth that Ethiopia can point to as its economy is ideologically-driven to exclusively enrich a narrow group. The economy is also dependent on aid. It was clear that the Minister was firing a makebelieve narrative or a myth on economic growth and improvement in health conditions in his empire. What is problematic is not that he blurted out whatever came to his mouth;it is shocking the UN and Global Citizen Festival decide to hold up Ethiopia as the best example of development on the continent once again just like theWorld Bank does. Some have even asked critical questions such as "Why are we funding abuse in Ethiopia?" and attempted to provided answers.
At best, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, was doing a public relations work on behalf of an illegitimate regime that perpetrates genocide in regions like Oromia and Ogaden.
Hailemariam Desalegn and the Fear of ICC
Except that they delivered speeches to two different kinds of audiences, Desalegn's speech in the General Debate, is fundamentally similar to the strong case Dr. Tedros Adhanom was making on behalf Ethiopia's regime. Showing the usual posture of Ethiopia to benefit from the war on terror, HMD opened his speech by expressing his solidarity with Kenya on the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi by Somali extremist militants linked to Al Shabab. That was fair enough, but the problem is that he goes onto opposing international approaches relating to fighting the culture of impunity among heads of state in Africa. He talked about "development" deliberately avoiding the link between the human rights abuses record of his government and poverty and underdevelopment in Oromia and other well known conflict regions of the country. Hailemariam Desalegn made these inaccurate statements meant to build the image of already conflict and diseases-ridden Ethiopia and Africa:
Africa has indeed turned the corner in reducing the number of conflicts plaguing the continent...ICC has degenerated into a political instrument targeting Africa and Africans.
If you do a bit of psychoanalysis on these statements, you will know that Ethiopia's leaders are self-conscious and insecure about atrocity crimes they commit and they are interested in hiding the fact that conflicts and human rights abuses exist in the country. That is why the PM was castigating the ICC efforts to arrest few African heads of state who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.They know they will be next unless somehow they characterize the ICC effort as some sort of the continuation of European colonialism in Africa half a century later after colonialism officially ended. If indeed Africa is seriously concerned that ICC is being used as a political instrument, why did not he propose the establishment of an African alternative to ICC, something like the International Criminal Court of Africa (ICCA)?
His government carries out atrocity crimes from murdering prominent Oromo activists in jail to genocidal massacres all over Oromia and Ogaden under excuses of fighting the war on terror and religious extremism when there is none. In reality, these innocent people murdered daily by the regime are ethnic others being isolated and targeted based on their ethno-nationality.
Second, the PM's assertion regarding the reduction of conflicts in Africa is half false because research shows while intrastate conflicts have been declining in Africa, intrastate conflicts, including in Ethiopia, are on the rise. The Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden Liberation Front respectively have been at war with the Ethiopian state since 1977 and 1993 respectively. OLF and ONLF claim they seek self-determination for politically unrepresented Oromia and Ogaden regions respectively. OLF and ONLF also mention that they were drawn into these conflicts because the Tigrean Liberation Front has violently excluded them from peaceful competition in their constituencies. Researchers put the intensity level of armed conflicts in Ethiopia at the level of "war" or moderate to medium intensity (Thmener and Wollensteen, 2012:10; IISS, 2013). Armed conflict databases says that there are >25 battle-related deaths in Oromia and Ogaden as result of this conflict, qualifying Ethiopia well for a country suffering from internal armed conflicts between state and rebels. Although Ethiopia's PM claimed that there is democracy and good governance in Ethiopia, the hard fact is the opposite--there is an absolute tyranny of unelected minority elites who grabbed power in 1991 through the barrel of the gun and a degree of US assistance.
Using a public forum afforded to them at the UN General Assembly and at the Global Citizens Festival, these two Ethiopia's EPRDF leaders have proven to us that they were globally implementing propaganda and image-building strategies they have perfected over the last 22 years, basically misinforming the world about what is going inside its closed door (to media and journalists). They succeeded in doing so since the international community now buys their false ideas about peace, economic growth, development and meeting millennium development goals. For Oromos and most people living in the Ethiopian empire under tyrannical conditions threatening their collective and individual existence, the speeches were offensive and they were doubly offensive that they were allowed deliver it on a global stage. The PM and FM were making the case to continue exercising the culture of impunity without international or local objections. The sprawling Oromo diaspora in Western countries alone is testimony to the fact that the cause has been repression and conflicts resulting from a rigid government policy isolating and targeting Oromos for massive rights abuses.
The right thing to do for the UN and the Global Citizens Festival was to categorically distance themselves from being conveyor belts for image-building propaganda campaigns targeting New Yorkers who may have no idea about the atrocity crimes the Ethiopian regimes. Exposing people of the free and democratic world to such nonesenses do nothing short of damaging to the peoples who are really facing brutal repression in their homeland, Oromia, Ethiopia. A good moral character would be to dissociate from criminals whether they are heads of state or not. Therefore, UN's and Global Citizens Festivals giving of hot mics to Ethiopia dictators to misinform the rest of humanity is repulsively objectionable among 94 percent of Ethiopia's population, at least.
Video Links:
FM Dr. Tedros Adhanom's speech at Global Citizens Festival in New York
http://gpp.mlbam.com/video/v31019021
PM Hailemariam Desalegn's speech at the General Debate
http://webtv.un.org/search/ethiopia-general-debate-68th-session/2695115132001?term=Ethiopia
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