Fighting Against FGM in Somaliland

Think Sophia Loren meets Miriam Makeba, then think Nelson Mandela meets Malcolm X, and you have the exquisitely beautiful countenance of the most formidable, effective, "won't-take-no-for-an-answer" woman in Somaliland today. Her name is Edna Adan and she is fighting for the health Rights and well-being of Somalilander women.

As we first arrived in Hargeisa, the capitol of Somaliland, I felt like we were driving through a dusty powder blue thorn bush sanctuary, their branches having successfully impaled thousands of wind-blown garbage bags.

Later I was to discover that the same slim and sleek 2 Inch thorns are used as stitching material, in the absence of needles and thread.

In a village outside of Hargeisa, Edna fingered the thorns, pressing the hard needle sharpness to her fingers. She looked at us and, at me, I felt, in particular. "You see these? This is what they use to sew up what's left of the girl's vagina when they perform SUNA on her. They hold the thorns in place with twine or leather string, whatever they have, for at least a week, maybe longer. The girl must be very still. But still she must urinate. Defecate. Imagine how painful. Imagine." She shakes her head and walks away, then smiles as she leans to pet a new-born goat, floundering on spindly legs.

Her mission is urgent, but her life carries with it a balance of laughter and tears like any other. In Hargeisa she not only trains mid-wives so they can return to their rural environment and provide pre-natal and birthing support, but also teaches these young women to carry with them the message that genital mutilation of any girl or woman does not serve them. But as I could hear from one young 23-year-old midwife, relaying that message, youth to elder, is difficult. Edna says to her before graduation, "What will you tell me, a grandmother, who wants to cut her little granddaughter?"

"I will tell her that it's bad and not healthy."

Edna role played the elder woman.

"But we have all had this done! I am here. I survived. What is so wrong with it?"

The young mid-wife stuttered. "It will make the birth more difficult. Infection can happen."

Edna throws her arms up in the air. "It's our custom. It must be done. My daughter is not pure otherwise. Convince me!"

"She could die from infection even before the child is born." Edna waves her hands. "I didn't die. Your mother did not die. But OK. Tell me more." Edna concedes, not wanting her student to spiral into a zero confidence zone.

Edna puts her hands on her shoulders, as her mentor and friend. She tells her that she must convince the elder to perform the least harmful type of circumcision. That it's the best they can hope for, for now.

The shooting is over and I reach into her pocket to retrieve my audio transmitter. Edna sings her usual jolly song, to the tune of "Dear Liza": "There's a hole in my pocket, dear Brenda, dear Brenda."

And I respond, "There's a hole in your pocket, dear Edna, my dear." We laugh and give each other a hug. Tomorrow we will sing it again.

To support Edna's work, donate to her RaiseforWomen fundraiser click here http://www.crowdrise.com/friendsofednas-RFW

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By Ethiopiawi

Introduction

The Nile is God’s gift to Ethiopia. For this reason one cannot dispute Ethiopia’s ownership right over the Nile without defying the will of the Almighty. Yet the  decision of the Ethiopian government  to build a hydroelectric dam thereon, called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (hereinafter GERD), has been met with open hostility by Arabs.  Ethiopians are hardly surprised by the Arab reaction, since,  for the last fifty years,  Egyptian leaders  have made the empty threat that they  would invade Ethiopia if it built a hydro-electric dam on the Nile. What has surprised Ethiopians is the audacity  of a former Saudi  deputy defense minister, Khaled Sultan, who, during an Arab water summit  held in Cairo last February, allowed himself the provocation that Arabs should envisage the use of military force to prevent  Ethiopia and other upper stream ( African) countries from harnessing the Nile waters. Does it mean that Africans must  resign themselves to live forever under poverty so that Arabs can  lead a better life? Do Arabs really think that Africans can accept the Arab self-serving motto that  “Africans must perish so that Arab economies can flourish”? The rodomontade  of  some Arabs like the former Saudi deputy defense minister is disquieting,  to say the least; not that Ethiopians are afraid lest Bedouin should invade them, but they cannot understand how it can occur to a normal human being with minimum intelligence to believe that a developing country such as Ethiopia can invest 4.8 billion dollars   on the construction of the GERD “just to harm” Arabs. Ethiopia has never tried to harm Arabs, although the converse has never been true. The reason is that Ethiopia could not hope to export electricity to Sudan, Egypt, Yemen and Saudi-Arabia or to trade with them  if its aim in building the GERD were to harm Arabs.  Ethiopia has decided to build the GERD because it is the only means for the country to translate into economic reality its huge potential of becoming the breadbasket of the Middle-East.

Ethiopia is indeed richly endowed with one of the most fertile lands on earth. It has abundant natural resources and huge untapped mineral wealth. It is also the water tower of Eastern Africa. Paradoxically, it has been a victim of recurrent famine provoked by drought to the extent that Ethiopia has become a byword of famine. Ethiopia’s proneness to drought in the second half of the 20th century was undoubtedly due to the fact that the country was ruled for one hundred odd years by  unpatriotic individuals appallingly indifferent to the nation’s development problematic.  Hamstrung by the shackles of underdevelopment, Ethiopia has been consequently unable for  100 years to use its natural resources and man-power to promote national development.

But things have started to  change since the advent of a developmental democratic regime in  the second half of 1991. The new rulers have come up with a revolutionary approach to the economy, which approach considers  prioritizing  the economy as  the best way of doing politics. Prioritizing the economy as a way of doing politics is indeed  a completely new thing  in the African continent. In accordance with their revolutionary approach to the economy, the new rulers designed an economic modernization strategy  aimed at  jump starting and sustaining the country’s rapid economic transformation.  Between 1991-2003, the economy grew at an average annual  rate of 4% ( Saheed A. Adejumobi, The history of Ethiopia, Greenwood Press, 2007). Compared to the growth registered between 2004-2012, the growth between 1991-2003 was rather lackluster, but  it was quite  respectable in comparison to the rest of Africa where the average growth rate was 2.8% (M. Adetunji Babatunde and Dipo T. Busari, “Global Economic Slowdown and the African Continent: Rethinking Export-Led Growth », (http://www.eurojournals.com/African.htm ). If truth be told, the Ethiopian economy could have shown a more impressive growth had  it not been for the decision of Ethiopia to assume  itself the responsibility of reconstructing  the Eritrean economy between 1991-1997 (Saheed A. Adejumobi, op.cit.) and  for the devastating consequences of the Eritrean invasion of Ethiopia between 1998-2000, which invasion took place after Ethiopia had told Eritrea to stand on its two feet and  to no longer count on Ethiopia’s generosity. Eritrea invaded Ethiopia in the hope of constraining  Addis Abeba to change its mind. No Ethiopian had suspected that the country would be invaded by toddling Eritrea, which had been militarily, financially and economically dependent on it.  In invading the northern part of the country where the Ethiopian army was conspicuous by its absence, the Eritreans had not either expected that Addis-Abeba could resort to an all-out war to  cripple Eritrea militarily and  economically. But Addis-Abeba decided to break the back bone of the numerically superior Eritrean army on which Isayas Afewerki had pinned his hope to transform Eritrea into the “military power house” of the Horn of Africa.

After having put Isayas Afewerki in his place, the Ethiopian government instituted in 2003 an updated version of its development policy. This has led to an  economic boom unprecedented in the nation’s history to the extent that   Ethiopia is now unanimously billed, to the use the words of The Economist, as the “development star” of Africa. Indeed, although Ethiopia is not yet oil-producing, it has outperformed oil producing African countries. According to the World Bank Report 2012, the Ethiopian  economy grew annually at an average rate of 10.6% between 2004-2012. The World Bank report showed that Ethiopia’s growth rate during the last nine years was the double of the average growth rate in the rest of Africa (i.e., 5.4% ).  Ethiopia’s growth rate has been unprecedented in Africa, barring  the erstwhile high-growth Ivory Coast, which booked 8% growth for two decades (i.e., from 1960 to 1979). But unlike the Ethiopian economic growth in which the preoccupation of the Ethiopian state  to embark the country on an autocentered path of development has led it  to invest a lot of time and energy in promoting manufacturing value creation/addition and combating remorselessly rent-seeking behavior, Ivory Coast pursued a neocolonial path of development in which economic growth was  dependent on foreign capital and  inputs (Dadié Attébi, Le défi africain: l’urgence d’une alternative économique en Côte d’Ivoire, L’Harmattan, Paris, 1995). The fact that Ivory Coast is today viewed as a washout shows that the  much-vaunted Ivorian economic miracle was a mirage (ibid.). Ivory Coast’s descent into hell in the 1990s and 2000s is also another evidence that dependent development (based on the export of natural resources) can take Africa nowhere. The foregoing is not to say that Ethiopia’s economy is not a dependent one.  Ethiopia’s growth has been dependent on foreign market, capital, technology, etc. But the strategy is clearly an autocentered one in the sense that the objective of the government has never been to generate economic growth for the sake of economic growth, but to build patiently and intelligently an independent national economy. From this point of view, Ethiopia’s economic growth is qualitatively unique in the economic history of Africa for it has been a growth generator of agricultural and industrial development.

The blinding economic growth and the government’s unremitting efforts to lay the ground work for an autocentered and self-sustaining economic development shows that the current regime is undeniably the most competent and the most creative regime that the African continent has ever known. The Ethiopian regime has a clear awareness that development is not synonymous of economic growth although there cannot exist development in the absence of the former. The war waged by the government against underdevelopment has had impressive results in poverty alleviation, in reducing child and maternal mortality, in the expansion  education from elementary to tertiary levels, in ecological conservation and restoration and in developing rural and urban infrastructures such as the construction of roads, rail ways and hydroelectric dams. The government has also contributed to the creation of hundreds of thousands of micro, small and medium enterprises by providing young Ethiopians with seed capital. Today, one can say that Ethiopia has met all the necessary conditions for takeoff.

There are however three prominent challenges which the country will have to overcome successfully if it is to embark on a path of dynamic industrialization: the miseducation (or the cognitive colonization) of Ethiopians, the occupation of the Ethiopian region of Assab by Eritrea and the problem of energy. I will not linger over the first two. Only the third will be discussed within the compass of this paper.  The economic growth and the increasing urbanization have brought to light  the urgency of  resolving the energy problem. Without cheap and unlimited electric supply round the clock, no industrial development can take place. In addition to that, environmental degradation caused by climate change, deforestation and water resources depletion have become pressing problems.  This means that Ethiopia’s economic growth may be short-lived unless the country buckles down to producing a clean (hydro-electric) energy with view to resolving the energy shortage and the problem of environmental degradation caused by climate change.   It is with view to finding a lasting solution to the  environmental and energy problems that the Ethiopian government decided  in 2011 to build the GERD .

In deciding to build the GERD, Ethiopia has not had any intention of harming any one. Its aim is only to resolve its socio-economic and environmental problems  by harnessing the waters of the Nile for electrification. What is incomprehensible is that although Ethiopia has repeatedly said that it was building the GERD only to generate electricity and not to reduce,  much less to stop the flow of the Nile water, Arab elites and media have been involved in a campaign of disinformation and defamation   against Ethiopia,  making as though Ethiopia decided to  arrest the flow of the Nile River or  to reduce the volume of water  that the Sudan and Egypt receive from Ethiopia.  The Arab led anti-Ethiopia campaign has snowballed  especially since the passing of former Prime Minister, Melles Zenawi. It leaps to the eye that Arabs have been trying to pressure the government of Hailemariam Desalegn in the vain hope that it might not prove its mettle.

However incredible it may be,  some “Ethiopians” have also entered the fray on behalf of Arabs against Ethiopia. A case in point is Alemayehu Gebremariam who has been involved in a campaign of disinformation and vilification against Ethiopia, in  distorting the truth about the GERD and in tarnishing the good image of the people of Ethiopia and that of their hard-working government.  In a bid to please his Arab masters, Alemayehu Gebremariam, has become more Catholic than the Pope since, in an article published  on March 11, 2013 and “Ethiopia: Rumor of water war” he asserted with Spartan certainty: “ there is little doubt that if the GERD is completed, it will have a significant long-term impact on water supply and availability to the Sudan and Egypt. The general view among experts is that if the dam is constructed …it could result in a significant reduction in cultivable agricultural land and water shortage throughout Egypt ”

I have always thought that educated Ethiopians of all political stripes would stand united when it comes to defending the  superior interests of the nation against foreigners. But Alemayehu has proved me wrong; he has showed that he and others of his ilk would not hesitate to sell their soul to the historic enemies of Ethiopia if they think it is politically advantageous for them.  All the same, I never thought that Alemayehu would stoop so low as to lie arrantly with view to prodding Arabs to declare war on Ethiopia. I say the above-cited quotation  is an arrant lie because Alemayehu knows that he can not adduce   the slightest bit of evidence in support of the statement: “ there is little doubt that if the GERD is completed, it will have a significant long-term impact on water supply and availability to the Sudan and Egypt”. He cited no study by an independent expert to support his claim.  If Alemayehu  were  not a fake intellectual, he could have taken up in all objectivity the question whether Ethiopia has the right under international law to build the GERD. And if  Ethiopia has the right under international law to build the GERD, he should have defended Ethiopia’s right and condemned the Arab campaign of disinformation against Ethiopia. But in a  flagrant  disregard of the rules of the intellectual profession, Alemayehu prodded Egypt to smash and trash the GERD with duster bombs. Alemayehu  said barefacedly that the GERD would have a negative impact  on the availability of water to Egypt although one does not have to be a genius in order to realize that  the Nile will  as usual continue its normal flow once  it is used to drive the turbine which powers the generator.

For over twenty two years, Alemayehu has made a scathing attack on the government of Ethiopia.  What he has never understood is that criticism must be constructive if it is to bring about the desired result and must, for this reason, remain within the limits of what is reasonable. If truth be told, Alemayehu has never been interested in  intellectual criticism. All his articles show invariably that he has past master in the art of propaganda mongering, which propaganda consists of the promotion of  defamation, character assassination and distortion of the truth.   For example, he  resorted to  sheer distortion of the truth  about the GERD with view to beefing up the Arab campaign of disinformation and defamation against Ethiopia.  This shows that Alemayehu has been lying about his “commitment” to “democracy” and “ human rights”. How can one pretend to fight for the “advent” of “democracy”  while exhorting Arabs to declare war on Ethiopia? How can one pretend to be working for the well-being of the Ethiopian people while one gives priority to  Arab  interest over Ethiopian national interest?  The GERD is not a property of the Ethiopian government. But the government has been mobilizing national resources and knowledge to build the GERD for the well-being of the present and future generations of Ethiopians. The government deserves to be praised and respected for that. Patriotic Ethiopians are very proud of the government’s decision to build the GERD.  Alemayehu’s decision to ally himself with Arabs against Ethiopia shows in no uncertain terms that he is a mercenary of the worst sort.

The purpose of the present  article is to defend Ethiopia  against the malicious propaganda by  Egypt, Saudi-Arabia and by  their  mercenary, Alemayehu Gebremariam.  To that end, the article labors to show why the argument that the GERD poses a threat to Sudanese and  Egyptian security is a straw man. The article is organized as follows. Part one is devoted to showing that the real problem between Ethiopia and  Arabs is not the GERD; the real problem stems from the centuries-old  unfulfilled dream of Arabs to Arabize Ethiopia and the steel determination of the Ethiopian nation to preserve its (African) exceptionalism.  The economic and military renaissance of Ethiopia will certainly lead it to abandon its hitherto defensive attitude and to take initiatives in its relationship with Arabs. From this point of view, it is quite comprehensible that the close relationship between Ethiopia and the state of Israel has got the Arabs rattled. The former Saudi deputy defense minister, Khaled Sultan, alluded to this relationship when he said: “there are fingers messing with the resources of the Sudan and Egypt which are rooted in the mind and body of Ethiopia. They don’t forsake an opportunity to harm Arabs without taking advantage of it”  (italics added). Needless to say, this accusation is based on a crass ignorance of the facts on the ground. First of all, the Nile is not, has never been and will never be an Arab property. Second, the argument that Ethiopia has decided to build the GERD at the behest of Israel “just to harm”  Arabs is a demonstration of  the Saudi deputy defense minister’s crass ignorance.  Israel’s national interest is not and cannot be Ethiopia’s national interest. Ethiopia’s decision to build the GERD is dictated only  by the urgent need to pull its own people and the peoples of the Horn of Africa out of underdevelopment. The Arabs don’t seem to have realized that their opposition against the efforts of Ethiopia to pull its 90 million population out of  poverty  may have a boomerang effect, for the Arab hostile diplomacy  may constrain Ethiopia to abandon its balanced policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict  and  to adopt a totally pro-Israeli policy. It is the Arabs who stand to lose from that since Arabs need more Ethiopia than Ethiopia needs them. The  former Saudi-Arabia deputy defense minister did not seem to be aware that Ethiopia had been feeding his fellow countrymen.

The second part of the article shows why the GERD is, as its name indicates, indispensable for Ethiopia’s renaissance and why mercenary Alemayehu Gebremariam’s portrayal of the GERD as a “make-believe project”   is a desperate attempt to discourage the patriotic members of the Ethiopian diaspora from contributing financially towards the completion of the GERD. Alemayehu has become a shame for  the whole Negro-African race since he has chosen to do the dirty work for Arabs against his own black race.  The description of Alemayehu as a mercenary of Arabs should not be seen as ad hominem, for the objective of the article is not to attack the person of Alemayehu Gebremariam (which is intellectually of no interest whatsoever), but to underscore the fact that Alemayehu  and the Arabs have made common cause to nip in the bud the Ethiopian economic revolution. In this regard, I would like to  argue  that  a notorious Arab mercenary, like Alemayehu, who has betrayed his own  race, cannot criticize  the great Pan-Africanist leader, Kwame Nkrumah. It is intellectually dishonest on part of Alemayehu to lump together Africa’s great anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist leader, Kuwame Nkrumah, with the errand boys of Western neocolonialism such as Mobutu Sesseko of the former Zaire or Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast.  One must also be hopelessly stupid  to compare Melles Zenawi, the most intelligent leader  that Africa has ever produced, with the likes of Mobutu Sesseko, Houphouet-Boigny and Jean Bedel Bokassa. Melles was not a puppet of Western imperialism. Quite to the contrary, thanks to his superior intellect he always got what he wanted without conceding on what was essential for him. It was for that reason that Melles is regarded by Westerners as the wiliest leader that Africa has ever produced. Unfortunately for Ethiopia and Africa, Melles died prematurely.

PART 1. WHY THE GERD DOES NOT POSE ANY THREAT AGAINST EGYPT

I  stated above that the argument that  the GEDR poses a threat to Sudan and to Egypt is a straw man. The Sudan and Egypt have obtained a strong reassurance from the  Ethiopian government that both down stream countries had everything to gain and nothing to lose from the construction of the GERD. The position of the Ethiopian government is confirmed by independent experts. But Ethiopia has also gone the extra mile to prove its good faith. It has established an international panel of experts whose task is to assess the impact of the GERD on the Sudan and Egypt. Composed of Ethiopian, Egyptian, Sudanese and Western experts,  the International Panel  is expected to  release its findings  at the end of  May.

That being said, there is unanimous expert opinion that if Ethiopia builds a  hydroelectric dam over the Nile,  it will not be necessary  for the Sudan to build its own dams  which could cost it billions of dollars. This was also confirmed by a senior official of the Sudanese Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation who is reported to have said in 2010 “  it makes no sense to build (a dam)  here in Sudan: the opportunity cost is huge. There is no comparison: a dam in Ethiopia has more benefits for the Sudan than for Ethiopia” (quoted by Harry Verhoeven (2011), “Black gold for blue gold. Sudan’s oil, Ethiopia’s water for regional integration”(  available on line). Experts are also unanimous in saying that the GERD will solve the problems of flooding to which the Sudan has been confronted.

The GERD will also prove to be very beneficial for Egypt. Because as experts insist rightly, the GERD will enable Egypt not to lose between 10 to 15 billion cube meters of water that it loses to evaporation (Gezu Karma, “Misleading article by a Sudanese on Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” published on   the  Website Ethio-media on December 6, 2012). The foregoing shows that the argument that the GERD will reduce the amount of water necessary to feed the Egyptian people is a ploy intended to tarnish the good image of Ethiopia. The GERD will enable Egypt to buy electricity, which it badly needs to accelerate its industrial development.

Why is then Arabs and their mercenary, Alemayehu Gebremariam, have been saying that the GERD will pose a serious threat to the very existence of the Egyptian people? The reason why Arabs and mercenary Alemayehu Gebremariam  have leveled against Ethiopia the false accusation that it is trying to destroy  the Sudanese and Egyptian people is simple: thanks to the GERD, Ethiopia hopes to embark on rapid industrial modernity. But the industrialization of Ethiopia  is the worst nightmare for Egypt and Alemayehu Gebremariam. Mercenary Alemayehu wishes Ethiopia to be straitjacketed by lack of investment or that it be faced with huge economic and financial difficulties so that the incumbent government would fall and that Alemayehu and other power-thirsty anti-Ethiopia individuals could take over the reins. But, since the government’s management of the economy has proved to be stellar, Alemayehu does not think that the fall of the regime will happen any time soon  unless Barack Obama messes with Ethiopian affairs or Egypt declares war against Ethiopia or unless Wahhabi Salafist terrorists  supported by   Saudi-Arabia,  Qatar and Egypt succeed  in igniting religious war  between Muslims and Christians in Ethiopia. In short, extreme power-thirst has led mercenary Alemayehu to declare an all-out propaganda war against the Ethiopian nation while the Ethiopian government has been working hard to enable it to regain its past glory. Was it a coincidence that the number one enemy of Ethiopia, Alemayehu Gebremariam, made a strong attack on the GERD at the very time when his political friends  went from the United States to Egypt to tell to the Egyptian government that they would dismantle the GERD if Egypt helped them to overthrow Ethiopian government? Indeed, Alemayehu’s friends have been telling us: “Ethiopia has a lot of rivers, it does not need to build a dam on the Nile. Let’s leave the Nile to Egypt,  which does not have any other river”. Alemayehu him self said the same thing when he stated that Melles Zenawi did not need to build a dam on the Nile for his “prestige”.  He added the Ghibbe dam with 1870 MW would be more than enough for Melles’ prestige.  This clearly shows that Alemayehu and his friends have been in the pay of Egypt  to tarnish the image of Ethiopia.

The aim of  Arabs in general and  that of Egypt in particular is not different from that of Alemayehu, although they are less dangerous to Ethiopia than mercenary Alemayehu and others of his ilk. I say Arabs are less dangerous  to Ethiopia than their mercenary Alemayehu because while Alemayehu and others of his ilk in the diaspora have been trying to dissuade members of the Ethiopian diaspora from investing in their home country, Arabs are one of the big investors in Ethiopia.  The Saudi government’s over all investment in Ethiopia is estimated to be in the region of 13 billion dollars. Nevertheless, the Arabs want to see the weakening and eventually the fall of the current Ethiopian government. Why?  Because it is the first government  in hundred years whose obsession has been how to propel Ethiopia into the league table of developed countries. The Arabs fear that with such a very competent and committed nationalist leadership it is  most likely that Ethiopia will leapfrog Egypt to become together with Nigeria and South Africa one of the three largest economies in the African continent.

As the second most populous nation of the continent, Ethiopia’s economic development will certainly infuse dynamism into the economies of its immediate neighbors and beyond. In this regard, there is no doubt that the extension of Ethiopian rail way network to Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan would boost  intra-regional trade and contribute to the advent of economic prosperity and lasting peace in the hitherto beleaguered Horn of Africa. War, terrorism, regional tensions will be closed chapters  in the region all the more so since the potentially huge Ethiopian market will enable countries with small domestic market like Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia and South Sudan to achieve economies-of-scale in their respective industrial drive.  An economically integrated Horn of Africa will certainly look to Ethiopia and no more to the Arab world. For this reason, the Arabs in general and Egypt in particular do not want to see the economic ascendancy of Ethiopia with or without the construction of the GERD.   In brief, the Arab world and its pivot, Egypt, have been very much scared not by the GERD ( because the dam will  increase the amount of water that the Sudan and Egypt receive), but by the inevitable economic, military, political and diplomatic climb up of  Ethiopia. The Arabs have not forgotten that their ancestors were once under Ethiopian rul

The rise of Ethiopia is also regarded as dangerous by some circles in the Western world.  To illustrate, Western organizations with hidden neocolonialist agenda such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Committee for Journalists, Genocide Watch,  International Crisis Group, Survival International, etc.,  have left no stone unturned to nip in the bud Ethiopia’s nascent socio-economic development under the false pretext of defending  “human rights” or “protecting” the environment. Those organizations with neocolonialist agenda have been trying to rule Ethiopia indirectly.  “Human Rights” watch’s request of the World Bank not to finance the government’s  villagization programs unless the government listens to its ukase evinces its desire to impose its indirect colonial rule on Ethiopia on behalf of multinational corporations. It is million times better to violate “human rights” than to submitting oneself to neocolonialists with no legitimacy whatsoever to control a democratic  and patriotic government.

The question now is: why  should the rise of Ethiopia be seen as a danger by Western multinational corporations on whose behalf “human rights” organizations and “environment protection” groups have been trying to nip in the bud the Ethiopian economic revolution? The reason is that  first Ethiopia’s economic development path and political system diverge largely from what the Western multinational corporations have prescribed for Africa, viz., an inhuman ideology called neoliberalism, a fake democracy called liberal democracy and  respect of formal bourgeois rights. The Ethiopian government and people have been determined to be the main actors of their own political and economic destiny. They have refused to outsource their political and economic modernization.  That is why they want the Western world to refrain from trying to make the history of Ethiopia in lieu of Ethiopians and to recognize the latter’s absolute right to make political, economic and administrative  mistakes and to learn by doing. To put it philosophically, the intelligent Ethiopian leaders don’t want  to imitate blindly Protestant modernity.

That is why the pro-Western Ethiopian government doesn’t accept the Western bourgeois (pseudo) democracy; nor has it been willing to apply uncritically the economic recipes of Western orthodox theory whose aim is to subordinate African economies to the needs of the developed world by preventing them from becoming independent national economies. For historical reasons, Ethiopia’s political system and economic policy are indeed without equivalent in the rest of Africa in the sense that they are not a carbon copy of the anti-democratic political and economic systems obtaining in the Western world. If Ethiopia succeeds (there is no reason why it can not succeed), it will surely be a true political and economic democratic model for other African countries and also for the toiling masses of the Western world. Second, Ethiopians believe that Africa’s true salvation lies in  the formation of  the United and Federated  Black African State. As things stand,  Balkanized Africa cannot meet the new challenges of the third millennium.  The formation of the United and Federated Black African State is therefore a must if Africans want to defend successfully their interests in the third millennium. The United and Federated Black  African State, probably  with Addis Abeba as its capital city, will accelerate the total emancipation of  the peoples of Africa from centuries-old  Western and Arab  religious, intellectual, cultural, economic and military domination.

Industrial development will allow Africa to become economically autonomous. But for that to happen, Africa needs energy. The GERD is designed to solve in the long-term Africa’s energy problem. Ethiopia’s hydro-electric potential estimated at “45, 000 MW is enough to meet most of Sub-Saharan Africa’s current demand” (Harry Verhoeven, ibid.).  Indeed, if the United and Federated Black African State can tap the water resources of Ethiopia and that of the Democratic Republic of Congo  (estimated at 100,000 MW), Africa  will become the industrial power house of the world. The GERD will contribute immensely to close economic integration of African countries. And more than anything else, economic integration will lead Africans to work for the formation of the United and Federated Black  African state. This will enable Africans to negotiate on equal terms with Westerners and  Asians.

From the foregoing it is clear that behind the Western and Arab media offensive against the construction of the GERD, there is a racial issue between Arabs and Africans. Africans want to regain their past prestige and glory while Arabs want,  with the help of the Western imperialism,  to prevent the emancipation of Africans from Arab cultural, religious, intellectual and economic domination. To put it bluntly, Egypt  is  worried not about lacking food or water as a result of the construction of the GERD.  Egypt knows that the God-fearing people of Ethiopia will  never harm the Sudanese and the Egyptian people. But Egypt has convinced itself that the GERD  would nullify its influence in Eastern Africa. The declaration of  the late Melles Zenawi in the early 1990s that the long-term objective of Ethiopia was not to be a leader of Africa, but to become the leading power in the Middle-East may have also added to the jitters of Arabs  about the new Ethiopia.

EGYPT’S LONG-STANDING POLICY OF DAMAGING ETHIOPIA

Nothing shows more Egypt’s determination to harm  Ethiopia than its contrasting attitude  towards Eritrea and Somaliland. Between 1950 and 1991, Egypt left no stone unturned to help Eritrea to secede from Ethiopia. In the 1960s Egypt and other Arab countries claimed that Eritrea was “part” of the Arab world. Egypt trained, armed and financed Eritrean rebels. However, Egypt’s determination to help the Eritrean rebellion was solely motivated by geopolitical considerations to prevent Ethiopia from becoming a potential rival in North-East Africa. The reason is plain:   86% of the volume of water that Egypt receives from the Nile waters comes from Ethiopian highlands. In the remote past Egyptian leaders  had dreaded lest Ethiopia should  divert the course of the Nile to punish Egypt.  But in the last quarter of the 19th century, the Egyptian army, trained and led by European and American military generals, tried two times to invade and colonize Ethiopia.  The aim was to take control of the source of the Nile River. Emperor Yohanes IV of Ethiopia put to rout the Egyptian army in 1875 and 1876, capturing a huge amount of modern fire arms. The annihilation of the Egyptian army by the Ethiopian army  had set the stage for the colonization of Egypt by Great Britain and  for the emancipation of the Sudan from Egyptian colonial rule. Since then direct military confrontation between  Egypt and Ethiopia has not been possible if we except the Ethiopia-Somalia war of 1977 in which, according to the previous Ethiopian communist  government sources,  twenty nine thousand Egyptian and Iraqi soldiers fought along side the Siad Barre army.  Indeed, Egyptian leaders, from Nasser to Mubarak,  did their best to provoke a proxy war against Ethiopia so that Ethiopia would not direct its attention to economic development. Egypt was behind the Eritrea rebellion from 1962 to 1991 and  the  Eritrean invasion of Ethiopia in 1998.

Now that Eritrean secession has proved to be a blessing in disguise for Ethiopia, Egypt believes that it can play  the Somalia card to stop Ethiopia’s ascendancy. That is why Egypt’s effort to facilitate the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia  contrasts sharply with its intensive lobbying of Western powers and the African Union not to recognize Somaliland. Why has Egypt been so determined to prevent Somaliland by all means from being recognized internationally as a sovereign state? If it were not for Egypt’s opposition, Somaliland would have obtained international recognition a long time ago and would accelerate its economic development.  Is Egypt really committed to Somali unity and territorial integrity? Not really. Anyway, the  Arabs don’t seem to have realized that  Somalia has never been and will never be a counterweight to Ethiopia.  The greatest counterweight to Ethiopia during the 20th century was Ethiopia. After its resounding military victory over Egypt in 1875, 1876 and  over Italy in 1881, 1884 and 1896, Ethiopia could/should have become the Japan of Africa.  This means that only internal factors will determine the success or the failure of the rise of  Ethiopia.   That  being said, the  Egyptian political elites have not yet realized that the scales have fallen from the eyes the Somalis; they believe that they can persuade Somalia to sacrifice its future  at the altar of Egyptian geopolitical  interest of preventing the economic and military rise of Ethiopia. That is why Egypt has been the greatest obstacle to Somaliland’s quest for international recognition.  Somalilanders should not believe that the “international community” is against the  recognition of their country just as Somalis should not  be  under the illusion that the “international community” stands for  Somalia’s territorial integrity. The “international community” has refused to recognize Somaliland because  Egypt has used its diplomatic clout to prevent the international recognition of Somaliland. The so-called international community has been acting on behalf of Egyptian geopolitical interests against Ethiopia.

Viewed against the Egyptian position, Ethiopia’s decision not to to recognize  Somaliland seems to be irrational. If Egypt believes that preventing Somaliland from obtaining international recognition will enable it to use a united Somalia to counteract  Ethiopia’s position in the Horn of Africa, the appropriate way for Ethiopia to prevent Egypt from using Somalia against Ethiopia should have been  to save Somalia  by helping Somaliland to obtain international recognition. But it seems that Ethiopia is keen on  forging a durable close relationship with Somalia. It has imposed on itself the obligation to respect  the moral precept that one should not “harm” one’s neighbor in trouble. This explains why Ethiopia has been saying it won’t be the first to recognize Somaliland despite its sympathy and admiration for the tenacity and resourcefulness of the Somaliland people. Isn’t the Ethiopian position of withholding recognition from Somaliland tantamount to behaving  vis-à-vis the Egyptian enemy  in accordance with the Sermon of the Mount

Ethiopians seem to have chosen to ruin the Egyptian plan by trying to convince the Somalis that the two sisterly neighboring countries stand to gain a lot from  a fruitful cooperation and mutual help and everything to lose from confrontation.  Since Egypt’s use of Siad Barre to weaken Ethiopia has had devastating consequences for Ethiopia (without that invasion Ethiopia would not have become communist and for Somalia, Ethiopia hopes that Somalia would no more be used by Egypt to damage Ethiopia.

If Egypt has the will and the capacity to attack Ethiopia, it can do it itself directly, not through the proxy of Somalia. It is not therefore far from the truth to argue that Ethiopia’s determination to forge a harmonious and a mutually beneficial relationship with the Somalia is informed by the geopolitical calculus to keep the Arabs away from the Horn of Africa.  The problem is that Somaliland has become the victim of the rivalry between Egypt and Ethiopia.

However, Egypt’s policy of damaging Ethiopian interests has not been limited to preventing Somaliland from obtaining international sovereignty. Egypt has also successfully dissuaded international financial backers (the World Bank, the African Development Bank, etc.,) and even the friendly government of China from giving loans to Ethiopia to finance the construction of the GERD. It is a testimony to Egypt’s determination to frustrate Ethiopian efforts to fight underdevelopment.  It also shows how much the United States has been willing to be used by Egypt against Ethiopia.

Unfortunately for Egypt, the completion of the GERD  has become for the Ethiopian people the mother of all wars that they cannot fail to win against Egypt. Ethiopia has  decided to fund the the construction of the 4.8 billion dollars  worth GERD project  by mobilizing its own domestic resources. The Ethiopian people and their government have promised not to back off in the face of Egypt’s determination (with the complicity of the Western powers) to checkmate Ethiopia’s efforts to fight underdevelopment.  It is the first time that an African country has decided to finance through its own resources the construction of a hydroelectric dam that will improve dramatically the lives of its 90 million people. By doing this,  Ethiopia is setting an example of national self-confidence and self reliance for the rest of Africa. There is no doubt that the completion of the GERD in 2016 will boost the attractiveness of East Africa for foreign investment.

The construction of the GERD will also change completely life in rural Ethiopia because  every Ethiopian village will benefit from electrification. Thanks to the  clean energy generated by the GERD, the industrialization of Ethiopia will be environment-friendly.  But the industrialization of Ethiopia will not take place at the expense of Egypt and the Sudan. It is therefore of no use  for Egypt  to rattle sabers, which saber-rattling does not any way  grab Ethiopia.

But let’s assume that the International Panel of Experts arrives at the conclusion that  GERD will reduce the volume of water that Egypt and the Sudan receive. So what? Should Ethiopia give up its fight against underdevelopment for the sake of the well-being of Arabs? The only thing Egypt can do is to ask Ethiopia to take the necessary measures so that the GERD would not inflict huge damage on Egyptian economy.  I mean,  no one can dare ask the Ethiopian people to stop their uphill struggle against underdevelopment so that Egyptians can lead a better life. The Ethiopian government has always expressed its readiness to cooperate in the spirit of mutual consideration on best ways of developing the waters of the Nile for mutual benefit. It is in this spirit that Ethiopia has played an active role in the preparation of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI).  But if the Arabs think that  they can cow Ethiopia  into giving up its uphill struggle against underdevelopment, they are committing a great error. Never in history has Ethiopia been cowed even by Westerners. In this regard, the Arabs would rather read again the Hadith and defer to the Prophet Mohamed’s statement about Ethiopia.

This is to say that although Ethiopians are peace-loving people, they are ready to confront militarily anyone hell-bent on humiliating them.  It is important to know that if Ethiopia cannot use the Nile waters for generating electricity, Egypt and Sudan will not have either the possibility of using the Nile for agricultural purposes. Ethiopia can take measures to deprive Egypt of any drop of water from the Nile. The Nile waters can diminish considerably if Ethiopia decides to use Nile’s different tributary rivers to irrigate the Ogaden desert and transform it into the bread basket of the whole Horn of Africa. Until now Ethiopia has not harnessed the tributary rivers of the Nile for irrigation; it only wants to generate electricity to satisfy its own energy needs. However, if Ethiopia decides to harness  the tributaries of the Nile with view to irrigating the Ogaden, Egypt does not have any means of stopping Ethiopia.

Besides, Egypt cannot “attack”  the GERD unless  Sudan allows its territory to be used by Egypt as a launching pad against Ethiopia. In that case, Ethiopia will consider Sudan’s behavior  as a declaration of war and  may be compelled  take appropriate  military measures to defend itself. The Ethiopia  of today is not that of Haileselassie or of Mengistu Hailemariam.  Egypt and Ethiopia occupy respectively the 14th  and the 29th place in the global rankings of military strength. In the African continent, they are followed respectively by South Africa (34th), Nigeria (36th) Algeria (38th ) and Kenya (46th) place (source: Global Fire Power military ranks 2013 available on line).  This shows that Ethiopia has never been as strong militarily and economically as it is today. The Arabs left no stone unturned to destroy Ethiopia between 1950-1998. But the Ethiopian people resisted heroically and foiled all Arab conspiracies. Now, it is too late for Arabs to prevent Ethiopia from directing its attention and resources to national development.

Of course, mercenary Alemayehu Gebremariam has been praying  that his   Egyptian masters  destroy the GERD so that Ethiopia runs up against financial problems. But the Egyptians are not that much stupid to try to provoke Ethiopia unless Egypt wants to dig its own grave. Ethiopia being the source of the 86% of the Nile waters, Egypt will always be at the mercy of Ethiopia. This is not an exaggeration.  A documentary film entitled “Mother Nature calls for help”,  broadcast by the Ethiopian television  two months ago showed  the existence of risk that the tributary rivers of the Nile might become  dry at the beginning of the second half of the 21st century as a result of climate change. The documentary film arrived at such a conclusion because one lake in Eastern Ethiopia has already dried up and there is also a risk that  two other lakes in Southern Ethiopia may dry up unless the Ethiopian government takes the necessary measures.  The documentary film  warned  that if the tributary rivers of the Nile dried up  the Nile would also dry up. And the death of the Nile would mean the death of Sudan and Egypt. But it would also mean that   Ethiopia’s development efforts would be seriously compromised. From the foregoing, it is clear that the fate of  Sudan and Egypt is in Ethiopia’s hands. Unless Ethiopia exerts effort to protect the tributaries of the Nile and if Egypt and Sudan are not willing to make financial contribution with view to helping Ethiopia in its effort to prevent the Nile from becoming dry, the Nile would eventually dry up and Arabs would not be able to receive any water from Ethiopian highlands.  The GERD is the only means to remove the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the next  generations of Egyptians.  I mean, trying to attack the GERD amounts to inviting disaster on oneself.

That said, completing the GERD and defending it from any internal and external enemy attack is a question of life and death for the Ethiopian people. Because the  GERD will improve dramatically the life of the current generation of Ethiopians and that of their descendants. It will also benefit other Africans. Already Sudan and Djibouti have been importing electricity from Ethiopia. Kenya and Tanzania will be the next beneficiaries. Somalia and Somaliland will also need  cheap electricity when they start to implement their respective industrial policies. This shows that far from being a white elephant, the GERD is indispensable for the industrialization of East Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular. It is not therefore an exaggeration to say that a war between Egypt and Ethiopia will also be  an economic war between Egypt and other Eastern African countries.  The completion of the GERD means for countries of Eastern Africa getting cheap electricity  without which there cannot exist industrial development.

PART 2.  WHY THE GERD IS INDISPENSABLE FOR EAST AFRICA’S INDUSTRIALIZATION

Mercenary Alemayehu Gebremariam said that war between Egypt and Ethiopia was in the offing. Minimizing Ethiopia’s capacity to defend itself and exaggerating Egypt’s military capacity, he posed a false question and gave a fake response:  “ what will Egypt will do if Meles’ Grand Renaissance Dam is in fact built?  “Simple”. They will use dam busters to smash and trash it”. This quotation is not based on the analysis  of reality. It is an expression of Alemayehu’s personal wish that Egypt attack the GERD. Egypt’s mercenary had also the gall to criticize the late Melles Zenawi simply because Melles did what no Ethiopian leader before him had been able to do.  Namely, building a hydroelectric dam on the Nile with view to  accelerating Ethiopia’s industrial development. Mercenary Alemayehu is mired in his own contradictions.  On the one hand,  he wrote off the GERD as a “make-believe project”. On the other, he said Ethiopia did not have the means to complete the GERD. The notorious propagandist and Arab mercenary  even wished that Ethiopia  was bankrupted. But he also expressed his wish that Egyptdestroy the GERD if it was built.  One cannot understand why Alemayehu wished  that Egypt destroy the GERD if he believed that it was a make-believe project. What is more,  by describing the GERD as “white elephant”  Alemayehu reproduced slavishly  the former Saudi-Arabia deputy defense minister’s propaganda that “the establishment of dam  42 kilometers from the Sudanese border is… for political plotting than economic gain and constitutes a threat to Egyptian and Sudanese security”.

                The fact of the matter is that the GERD is not a white elephant. To the contrary, rural Ethiopia   will benefit from electrification thanks to the GERD. The electrification of rural Ethiopia will facilitate rural industrialization; Ethiopian agriculture will no more be rain-fed; it will use irrigation through out the year. Thanks to electricity Ethiopian peasants will be  able to export   finished goods such as cheese,  pasteurized milk,etc., to  urban Ethiopia. This will protect Ethiopian peasants from unfavorable terms of trade with urban Ethiopia. But Ethiopian pastoral regions in the Southern and Eastern part of the country will also be big beneficiaries. They will not be compelled to lead a  precarious nomadic life in search for water and grass for their livestock. They will be able to lead a sedentary decent life and depasture their animals in their respective villages by using irrigational techniques to cultivate their farm land. Sedentary life will enable  them to benefit from health, educational  and other public services.

The upshot of this is that there will be no rural exodus to urban areas. To the contrary, being a farmer or a pastoralist will no more be a neglected occupation.  It is not only rural Ethiopia which will benefit from electrification. In urban Ethiopia too,  hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian entrepreneurs have been waiting eagerly to see the completion of the GERD so that their enterprises can produce at full capacity. Without the GERD, Ethiopia cannot embark on a successful industrial revolution. Thanks to cheap and unlimited electric supply, not only will Ethiopian industries be very competitive, but Ethiopia will be the mecca of foreign investors. Mercenary Alemayehu  is not without knowing that. But as he is the worst enemy of Ethiopia, he said   the Ethiopian people should not build, could not build the GERD. What grounds  did mercenary Alemayehu have  for saying that Ethiopians could not build the GERD?

Alemayehu did not try to find out in all objectivity what the Ethiopian people and their government had been doing to complete the GERD according to schedule; he did not try to show in all objectivity the difficulties  that might prevent the Ethiopian people from completing the GERD.  To the contrary, he resorted to denigrating the Ethiopian people, their government and the GERD.  He denigrated the Ethiopian people by describing them as the “poorest” in the world,  and as  too weak  to be able to  defend the GERD from being smashed and trashed by Egypt. The government was  also vilified as “corrupt” and “incompetent”. One would say Alemayehu did not know how to argue. He made “conclusions” without showing first why he had arrived at this or that conclusion. For example, he said the GERD would never be built because a country whose citizens lived on one US dollar per day could not be expected to raise  4.8 billion dollars. First, using uncritically the Western  measure of wealth and poverty to evaluate Ethiopia is a sign of cognitive colonization and not of education.  The idea behind  per-capita income is the belief that the wealth of a society is the sum total of atomistic individuals. This is based on methodological individualism.  He who applies such an approach to Ethiopia supposes wrongly that Ethiopia is an individualist society and that it has also espoused the materialistic world view that underpins the Protestant modernity. That said, there is no doubt that the Western  measure of wealth and poverty does not take into account the production of wealth by Ethiopian peasants or nomads who own a large livestock, and by other Ethiopians who produce for their own consumption. The calculation of Ethiopia’s per-capita income  according to the Western  measure of wealth and poverty is based only on what is available in the country’s official statistics, i.e., a very small part of Ethiopia’s  annual domestic production.

As for the issue of poverty,  Alemayehu does not seem to know that the problem of Ethiopia has never been poverty; the problem has been under development. it is very important to be able to make such a distinction, for, number one,  poverty is relative.  If we admit that poverty is relative, one can argue that there are as many poor in the United States as there are in Ethiopia if one compares America against America. But, there are also  as many rich in Ethiopia as there are in the United States if we compare Ethiopia against Ethiopia. Number two, poverty has always existed in Ethiopia as it has existed  everywhere in the world. But the underdevelopment of Ethiopia is a recent phenomenon which dates back to the country’s conflictual  encounter with Western Protestant Modernity in the 1940s.

Be that as it may, per-capita income as a measure of wealth and poverty is a Western ethnocentric measure. What Ethiopia badly needs is not the dramatic increase of GDP or of the per capita income (although that is not bad in itself), but autocentered development. This means that the objective of Ethiopia should not be to become like Qatar  or Luxembourg (two tiny countries with the highest per capita income in the world), or to become a middle income country by 2025, but to build patiently and intelligently an indigenous industrial, technological and scientific capability. That said, if we were to adopt the discourse of miseducated individuals like that of Alemayehu,  Ethiopia cannot be considered as the “poorest” country in the world while it is the 72nd economy in the world, the 6th economy in the African continent, the 4th in Sub-Saharan Africa and by far the largest economy in Eastern Africa.  Even if we were to accept as valid Western crass materialism as  measure of wealth and poverty, mercenary Alemayehu did not show why a patriotic “poor” society with a committed and competent leadership could not raise the necessary funds to construct a dam which would enable it to make underdevelopment history.  The proof is that Ethiopia  has already had 85%  of the fund necessary for the project. For  Arabs and for Alemayehu, this is very bad news. But for Africa, the completion of the GERD will be another testimony to its renaissance.

Mercenary Alemayehu Gebremariam believes that he can thwart Ethiopia’s industrial drive  through a campaign of disinformation and disseminating fear among the members of the Ethiopian diaspora.  He seems to have taken  literally the Amharic saying to the effect that  “an army victorious in the battle field can be defeated through a campaign of disinformation and rumor-mongering”. I mean, by saying that the GERD is a “make-believe project”, or that it is Melles Zenawi’s private dam, mercenary Alemayehu’s main aim is to dissuade the Ethiopian diaspora from buying bonds to fund the completion of the GERD. What mercenary Alemayehu does not realize is that unlike him and others of his ilk, patriotic Ethiopians in the diaspora know full well that what is at stake is  Ethiopia’s future industrialization. Only the enemies of Ethiopia like Alemayehu, who don’t want to see Ethiopia win the fight against underdevelopment, can say Ethiopia should never think of building hydro-electric dams on the Nile.

But if one is patriotic enough and wants their mother land to win the fight against underdevelopment, supporting the GERD financially is a duty from which no patriotic citizen can shirk.  The GERD is indispensable for industrialization for two reasons: number one, the GERD will  satisfy the country’s energy needs. This will facilitate the ecological restoration and protection of rural Ethiopia.  Second,  the country will export  electricity. The energy export will enable the country to build a dynamic comparative advantage, and  to pay the import bills of intermediate and capital goods necessary to accelerate its industrialization.   It is with this noble objective that the intelligent Ethiopian regime has been exerting herculean efforts to complete the GERD according to schedule.

Given that the GERD will change the economic landscape of Ethiopia root and branch, one cannot,  unless one is in the pay of the arch enemies of Ethiopia, say it is a white elephant or that it is meant to magnify Melles Zenawi’s  international prestige. Mercenary Alemayehu did not produce one single evidence that Melles Zenawi was ever interested in his per