Zenawi’s death spells out Africa’s conundrum
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is dead.
He’d been rumoured to have died long before this morning’s announcement on Ethiopian state television. My contacts confirm that he had cancer, but the Ethiopian people were never told.
The prime minister had not been seen in public since June. A nurse at a hospital in Belgium told a friend of mine that he had been unsuccessfully treated there for cancer in July – the same month that the government admitted he was taking a break to deal with “ill health”.
His failure to appear at the African Union summit in Addis in the middle of last month sparked the claims that he was already dead.
The secretive end of Meles Zenawi speaks volumes of his life. He did much to modernise Ethiopia in his 17 years in power.
I met and interviewed him in Addis some 10 years ago. A small, dapper, clever man, he had no doubt that he was the only man good enough to lead his country. Consequently he has died with no succession plan in place.
Like Rwanda’s Kagame, Zenawi emerged from ethnic strife to unite and, to some extent, heal his divided nation.
Like Kagame, he was the classic new breed of “African democrat” beloved of the likes of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Indeed he led the Africa Commission that Blair helped establish in 2005.
But Zenawi reportedly fiddled the system to stay in power, not least in the course of the country’s most recent elections.
Like Kagame, as his despotism became more and more apparent, those same western leaders kept any misgivings they might have had about him to themselves.
Ethiopia, bedevilled by famine and poverty, grew 11 per cent on Zenawi’s watch. But journalists and opposition politicians alike lived in fear of his casual relationship with the concept of human rights.
Human Rights Watch confirmed as recently as 2011 that hundreds of journalists and politicians were arbitrarily arrested and jailed in constant fear of torture.
Zenawi’s act will be a hard one to follow. His death leaves us with that age-old question: if our imperfect model of democracy in the “north” is wrong for Africa, what’s right?
Is the Zenawi brand of autocracy really the only way for poorer nations like Ethiopia to progress?
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There are 18 comments on this post
RIP , but really he was not a great leader at all. He was not a democrat , never respected human rights and above he was a typical clinging-to-power-and-self-enriching african politician at the expense of poor citizens .
The legacy of ex-guerrilla leader Meles Zenawi will always be tyrany,dictatorship & war with neighbours.
No matter what the generous western media try to portray him,for his people he was an iron-fist tyrant who cunningly & systematically oppressed the constitution in his 21 year old leadership.He ruthlessly prohibited freedom of speech & many political activities are strictly forbidden,many activists are locked-up & some have vanished.
Even though Ethiopia remains one of the poorest country in the world,Zenawi carelessly involved the country in costly wars with neighboring countries including arch-rival Eritrea.
His death will bring some uncertainties in his country even the region however this could be a chance for Ethiopia to have its ‘first’ ever constitutionally elected leader.
May we finally be able to witness PEACE in this war-torn region.
the imperfect model of democracy in the “north” has never been given a chance in the south. your premiss is wrong.
You are the man to talk about Africa as I confess I know little about it, except the tales
of unrest and famine on the news over the years.
From the comments you have made over time and in your book, I guess Uganda means a lot to you, but on the map Ethiopa isn’t too far away ( there again the planets look near on a map)
My immediate reaction was one of reading a breech in confidentiality to the ? press, of unsucessful cancer treatment.My second impression was there was an implicit understanding that because Zenawi had not left any family to follow him in rule, there was no one to take over and the democratic way to appoint another leader was not an option.
Then the third point which for me asks should a nation be told of an illness which is a private concern, whether that person is a public figure or not.
Meles was a very cleaver man who not only contributed to ethiopia but the wolrd too. Deomocracy is a process no country in the world can say they have fully met. Its a work in progress. You can not become a democratic nation in some 20 years. As Meles said, its a work in progress not just in ethiopia but the developed world. There are times when words can not resolve things and a hard measure is required.
It is clear to anyone with a logical mind that afetr fighting 30 years to change Derg ruling, Meles was not going to leave power becuase he lost the first democartic election ethiopia ever had. Remember no leader prior to him allowed such possibility. Then why did he hold an election? Because he belived with all the good work and improvment he brought, people would vote for him and they may have done. Becuase he wanted ethiopia to not be a democratic nation right then and there but to START the process of democracy. He did make mistakes but you cant keep everyone happy. Esp a country like ethiopia where there are 83 lanugues and so many tribes all wanting to lead the country. may he rest in peace. am just an ethio boy who was againest him but he proved me wrong in his work
Why did your correspondents on this evening’s C4 7 o’clock news repeatedly mispronounce Meles Zenawi’s name as though it was Czech? He was not Melesh but Meles.
I was also ashamed at the way Lord Stern was constantly interrupted in order to make the well worn cliche that African leaders eventually become despotic. Ethiopia’s young democracy was not perfect, but it was immeasurably better than the Derg’s regime and it is more intelligent to understand, in Ethiopia’s case, that it’s democracy follows on the imperial rule of an empire rather than that of a tribal society.
over a 1000 years, Ethiopia never had any form of democracy, never mind the one like in the “north”. Somebody had to start is some day and the Great Meles started it. John, as Meles once told you when you interviewed him, in an emerging democracy, you will have imperfection admitting the problems and mistakes he faced. How many African leaders could openly say this???
believe or not he is the number one leader of the
African continent as well as one of the best leaders in the world ……
Dear John,
What an unfair piece on a man who dedicated his life to improve the lives of his people and Africa? By any standards PM Meles was a great leader (clever, hard working and without care for personal wealth) who tried to combat poverty, improve education and health standards. He was by no means perfect but history will be more generous in applauding his achievements than your summation. Ethiopia needed a strongman after the Mengistu era; it has many internal (foreign funded liberation movements) and external enemies (Al Shabab, Eriteria, Egypt etc.) and ethnic divisions not to mention its many other challenges (population explosion, poverty, disease etc.) and his smart/strong leadership (aligning himself with the West and China) was vital in lifting it from a pathetic famine stricken country to being able to feed most of its people. His ability to understand many issues – economic, climate change etc. was amazing and this was probably borne out of reading a lot and pure intelligence. Anybody who saw how the people of Ethiopia are mourning his death on the arrival of his body will appreciate how respected and loved he is by his people. Please be fair in your analysis.
GOD has listened Ethiopian’s prayer…
Glad he is gone for ever…..
I have no tears for this killer. Had shed
my tears for the millions he has killed and
jailed for life.
Don’t know enough about Ethiopia or Zenawi to comment in any detail, but a couple of general points:
- excellent interview by you with Zenawi replayed on yesterday’s C4 News. He was correct: democracy in his country is a work in progress but that is always, everywhere the case, including in the UK. For example, this week alone – and it’s only Wednesday morning! – has seen reports of Royal Mail, BBC and some local authorities using terror legislation (RIPA) to spy on citizens
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bbc-and-royal-mail-using-ripa-terror-powers-to-spy-on-public-8070057.html
while London’s Metropolitan and regional police forces are keeping and sharing millions of records on members of the public/’persons of interest’ who’ve neither been charged nor convicted of any crime because they may ‘prove useful in the future’
http://gu.com/p/39pmq/tw
Parliamentary ‘representative’ democracy is increasingly a fig-leaf for control by the international political and financial elite. It’s not that the model is imperfect, rather that the price of evolving democracy is active citizenship. We have to get stuck in if we’re to improve on what we have. Citizens assemblies?
There are clearly far more positives than negatives.
- freedom of speech … still a long shot better than previous regimes
- ethnic federalism … opinions vary based on ethnic background
+ Transformed the economic progress of the country in the last 10 years
+ Visible and tangible changes across the country including massive dam projects for power and irrigation
+ Spokesman for Africa on the world stage (G8, G20 etc)
+ Fought hard fundamentalists
+ Unbelievable work ethics and dedication, 21 years in office without a holiday
… to name a few.
Meles is not perfect like any human being but his accomplishments are loud and clear.
RIP
(continued)
Re Blair’s Africa Commission and his comment re Zenawi’s death on last night’s C4 News – is there anywhere/thing that this guy hasn’t poked his nose in (currently it’s the ‘Olympics legacy!)? When speaking about ‘democracy’, let’s not forget that it’s the UK’s property-owning former prime minister and his former (Council Tax expenses’) Justice Secretary that no longer support the Freedom of Information Act they were responsible for introducing. They argue that it inhibits frank discussion between ministers and civil servants.
The arrogance of these party-political ‘elected’ members exposes precisely what’s wrong with the North/UK version of democracy: these guys ‘n gals think they know what’s best for the rest of us and, of course, ‘the country’. Embedding anti-democratic tendencies inside the representative parliamentary system shows that our politicians dislike too democratic accountability. While it appears Zenawi was troubled by the systemic undemocratic tendencies in his country, ours seem happy to enhance them.
We get the democracy we deserve. It’s time to move on from representation to participation.
Meles was indeed a darling to the West, but to his people he was a brutal dictator,he killed thousands,jailed many more for life. Many tribes like the Oromo have suffered under him, he kicked out Eritreans who have lived in Ethiopia for generations with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and took all their properties, businesses and money, he separated many families. Meles was brutal, but of course as long as he was liked by the West, his history can be rewritten and the ones that suffered to be invisibilised again
No matter what ‘outsiders’ say, we Ethiopians are utterly broken by his death. For those who associate him with dictatorship and violation of human rights at this point of time, I have just one thing to say- just see how much we love him with all his limitations -see how we are mourning including his funeral.
Shall I remind you that Hitler was loved too, so are other dictators, that’s hardly news. A ruler should be judged on his human rights record not on how much the ‘right’ people like him. Those who like Meles are the ones who have benefited from his abuse of the vulnerable.
he has done good things and bad things what concern us (ethiopian) who can replace him we fear there could be a fight for position
from ethiopia
when the grass is cut the snakes will show!