On a dilemma in the Horn

Feb 22nd 2007 | ADDIS ABABA
From The Economist print edition

Should the West go on helping a repressive Ethiopia?

THE second most populous country in Africa and one of the poorest, Ethiopia is a test case for the West in its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty on the continent. But its government's undemocratic leanings have presented donor countries with a dilemma. Should they continue to funnel their taxpayers' money to a country that routinely jails and tortures its critics or should they turn off the tap and thereby hurt the blameless poor?

............Meles Zenawi's government is finding it hard to run the show. Some 80% of the people in Addis Ababa probably back opposition parties. In response, the government has become harsher, muzzling free speech and forcing independent newspapers to close. Many journalists are in jail on trumped-up charges. Dissidents have been disappearing, along with critical websites. Telephones are often tapped. For more than a year, text messaging on the country's small number of mobile phones has been hampered by “technical difficulties”.

.........The government keeps up a hum of fear with attacks on opposition supporters. Teachers are a favourite target. Some have been beaten so badly in detention they could not stand up in court. Even schoolchildren have faced the authorities' wrath. In Ambo, west of the capital, some 14 of them in a secondary school were detained; some were allegedly tortured. The usual charges, if brought at all, are sabotage or treason. Suspects are often “found” to have links with familiar bogeymen: neighbouring hostile Eritrea; the Oromo Liberation Front, a movement in the centre and south; or, in the heartland of the once-ruling Amhara around Addis Ababa, “terrorist groups” whose existence is fuzzy. Read more