Interview with a dictator

After last weeks post featuring a video clip of Al Jazeera's interview with Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerki, I would be remiss if I didn't offer a link to an interview with Afewerki's arch nemesis, Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi.

EthioBlog has reprinted a Time magazine interview with Meles Zenawi, where the interviewer asks some tough questions about democracy in Ethiopia, his proxy war with Eritrea in Somalia, Ethiopia's relationship with the United States, human rights abuses, and whether nor not he intends to step down for good when his term expires in three years. Compared to the soft soap questions Al Jazeera asked Afewerki, Meles Zenawi was clearly put on the spot.

I can't say the interview revealed any surprises until he admitted that "fear" keeps him awake at night.

It has always been fear — fear that this great nation, which was great 1,000 years ago but then embarked on a downward spiral for 1,000 years, and reached its nadir when millions of people were starving and dying, may be on the verge of total collapse. Now it's not a fear of collapse, I believe we are beyond that. It's the fear that the light which is beginning to flicker, the light of a renewal, an Ethiopian renaissance, that this light might be dimmed by some bloody mistake by someone, somewhere.

- Meles Zenawi

Despite his "fears" about Ethiopia's political and economic progress going down the tubes, Zenawi insists that he will be stepping down when his term expires, a claim dictators often make in haste and repent in leisure. You can read the rest of the interview here at EthioBlog, and judge the sincerity of his claims for yourself.

UPDATE: Thank you, Dan, for giving a shout out to DotW over on The Democratic Piece. Yes, there really are blogs about everything.

Softening at home, hardening abroad

Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi has reportedly provided a full presidential pardon to 38 people, alternately described as "opposition political activists" or "terrorists" depending on who was asked and when. The move came as something of a surprise to foreign observers, especially since the Ethiopian government had originally sought the death penalty for the 38, before sentencing 35 of them to life in prison.

Meles Zenawi's pardon could be read as a peace offering to his political allies in Washington, who appear willing to overlook Ethiopia's rotten political climate as long as their strategic ally in the war on terror doesn't do anything too repressive to embarrass the United States. After all, political unrest at home at home is but of one of Meles Zenawi's concerns, and he's got bigger fish to fry. I speak, of course, of Ethiopia's bitter enemy Eritrea, and his increasingly personal duel with its dictator, Isaias Afewerki.

Whether Meles Zenawi's pardon was due to magnanimity or expedience, the escalating border tensions with Eritrea, along with Ethiopia's proxy war in Somalia, have insured that keeping the flow of American cash, weaponry and good will are essential to keeping Afewerki in check. His strategy appears to have borne fruit; the flow of American aid has continued unimpeded, a new $140 million dollar embassy is in the works, and best of all, his hold on power appears to be unassailable. With rewards like these, pardoning political prisoners hardly seems like a risk at all, does it?

Will Meles Zenawi attack Isaias Afewerki?

Rumors abound that Ethiopia is planning a "preemptive" invasion of Eritrea, starting a new chapter of military tension between perenially dueling dictators Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea.

While their proxy war in Somalia continues, Meles Zenawi raised tensions by moving thousands of troops and heavy military hardware near the perpetually contested border with Eritrea to "prevent a possible Eritrean invasion of Ethiopia" while simultaneously issuing a warning to Afewerki to butt out of Somalia. Unperturbed by Ethiopia's threats, Afewerki's government blasted Meles Zenawi as a "boot licker" to the United States, and predicted Ethiopia's imminent defeat in Somalia.

While Ethiopia does indeed have its hands full at home and in Somalia, there's little doubt that Ethiopia's recent military training and equipment upgrades have given Meles Zenawi a decisive tactical edge in any potential conflict with Afewerki. And who knows? Kicking Eritrea's ass might take his mind off improving human rights or expanding political freedoms on the home front.

Obviously, you can tell I think Meles Zenawi is dealing from a position of strength with Afewerki, but perhaps that's just me. Looking through my site statistics, I see a couple of readers in the United Kingdom who read my posts about Eritrea and Ethiopia for hours a day. What do you the readers, especially you blokes in Epsom, think?

Horn of Africa Week: Postscript

The Ethiopian military and Somali Transitional Government have reportedly defeated the Islamic Courts Union and Hawiye clan militias in Mogadishu. There has been no comment yet from Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi on what Ethiopia plans to do next.

UPDATE: Mogadishu residents who had fled the fighting are starting to return to the city.

Horn of Africa Week: Meet Meles Zenawi

Horn of Africa week continues here at Dictators of the World with an examination of Isaias Aferwerki's archenemy, Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi.

Meles Zenawi was a 22 year old medical school student when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a coup d'etat orchestrated by a group of military officers known as the Derg. The hostility of the Derg towards the people of Tigray prompted the young Zenawi (being Tigrinya himself) to join, and eventually lead, a Marxist resistance group called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front who were bent on driving out the Derg, especially the eventual Derg chairman, dictator Haile Mengistu Meriam.

After decades of fighting, (and compliated political mergers) Zenawi got his big break when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Mengistu's primary source of military and economic aid completely dried up. By May of that year, the Zenawi led Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front chased Mengistu into exile, and Zenawi took power first as "transitional president" until 1995, when he took the title of Ethiopia's first elected Prime Minister.

"This is not your run of the mill demonstration. This is an Orange Revolution gone wrong."

- Meles Zenawi

Once in power, Zenawi became the darling of the industrialized west, who hailed him as a reformer and a democrat. While it was certainly true that Zenawi's rule was far more democratic than that of his predecessor, it's also true that he's either arranged or tolerated a wide array of "voting irregularities" that keep his party in power. His government has also been widely condemned for ordering an incredibly violent police crackdown on a crowd protesting the rigged elections in 2005 that left nearly 200 people killed, countless injured, and resulted in tens of thousands of arrests. Zenawi was quick to dismiss these condemnations, saying that the protesters in questions were harboring rioters armed with guns and hand grenades, an allegation denied by some eyewitnesses.

And then there's the war. In 1998, the former Ethiopian province of Eritrea led by former colleague Isaias Aferweki, led soldiers into the Ethiopian town of Badme. In no time at all, what had been a minor border dispute turned into a full blown war. During the conflict, the Zenawi government began to expel deporting Ethiopians of Eritrean descent across the deadly front lines to Eritrea, a flagrant human rights violation. Zenawi also used the war as a pretext to begin cracking down on his political enemies, throwing unknown thousands of dissidents in jail and harassing journalists deemed unfriendly to the government.

While less autocratic than his rival in Eritrea, Zenawi has certainly made it clear that he intends to stay in power, and does not mind resorting to vote rigging and political persecution to do so. Ethiopia's cooperation in the fight against Islamic militancy in Somalia has also led to a key alliance with Washington in the war on terror. This alliance has provided Zenawi with access to military and economic aid that might otherwise be denied, and has also caused Washington to look the other way when it comes to Zenawi's abuse of political and human rights in Ethiopia. Zenawi's dictatorship, while not entirely legitimized by the United States, European and African Unions, is tolerated, if only because they find his abuses of political and human rights "less egregious" than those in Eritrea, and because of Ethiopia's ability to keep rebel movements that are deemed to be even nastier in check. Zenawi's critics have rightly alleged that Zenawi has his hands dirty as well when it comes to sponsoring rebel armies in neighboring countries, and it is further suggested that should Zenawi ever find himself at peace at home and abroad he would face uncomfortable demands for political reform from his western patrons. A cynic might even suggest this provides Zenawi with motivation to pursue military solutions to problems that could be resolved peacefully, but as you all know by now, I'm certainly no cynic.

All of this leads us to the current fighting in the Horn of Africa. Will Zenawi or Afewerki come out on top in their proxy war in Somalia? Will they go back to the negotiating table, or simply declare war again?

Horn of Africa Week: Dueling dictators hammer Somalia

It's all Horn of Africa news all the time this week at Dictators of the World! And who are today's lucky despots? Why, that would be Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi and his Eritrean rival Isaias Afewerki, both of whom are once again locked in war, only instead of the usual bloody border conflicts, they're throwing down in Somalia.

For those people who haven't been following what's going on in Somalia this year, let's catch up. Following the decisive defeat of the ruling Islamic Courts Union by Ethiopian troops and US air strikes, the fragile internationally recognized (but militarily impotent) Somali government appeared ready to start the long hard slog to rebuilding Somalia's long demolished political and social institutions. Backed by Ethiopian troops, the government had moved back to Mogadishu, and appeared to be well on their way to getting down to business before all hell broke loose - again.

After their asses were thoroughly whipped by the Ethiopian army, Islamic Court Union leaders fled to the Middle East to start - what else? - jihad against the Ethiopian infidels. Enter Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerki, whose ears pricked right up when the Somali holy war started looking for allies and weapons to kill Ethiopian soldiers. Just as Ethiopian troops started pulling out, and African Union and Ugandan peacekeeping troops started coming in, Mogadishu saw an enormous resurgence of violence that has since morphed into all out war.

Eritrea has publicly denied aiding the Somali Islamic militias, but have been unable to explain how Somali rebel leaders keep showing up in Eritrea to threaten Ethiopia with "total war". In a dictatorship like Eritrea which has no privately owned media, these sorts of threatening remarks are not just made, much less distributed to the press, without the assent of the government. What's more, these same rebel leaders have suggested that this "total war" may, in fact, involve an Eritrean military invasion of Ethiopia itself.

"If we let Somalia burn, we will end up getting scorched as well."

- Meles Zenawi

Isaias Afewerki, however, may have bitten off more than he can chew. In Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi says he's ready for whatever Eritrea is ready to dish out, be it on their shared border or in Somalia. The fact that Zenawi's opponents in Somalia have been linked to al Qaeda has won him military support from the United States in the war on terror - an X factor that may tip the balance in Zenawi's favor.

In the grand scheme of things, it seems like a good bet that the proxy fight in Somalia will be just one front for a renewed war between two rival dictators, regional stability be damned. Naturally, I'll be keeping an eye on the news to see just which tyrant comes out on top of Africa's newest, and most bitter, enemies. It sounds lame, but it's still true, that no matter which tyrant comes out on top, Somalia guaranteed to be the loser.

UPDATE: Behailu Damte weighs in on Eritrea's recent displays of gulliness at African Path.

UPDATE II: The gloves are definitely off. Eritrean backed rebels kill 74 people in Ethiopia, while Ethiopian tanks attack militias in Mogadishu.