A darling of the West turns nasty

Middle East & Africa
Ethiopia
A darling of the West turns nasty
Nov 10th 2005 ADDIS ABABAFrom The Economist print edition
As a favourite recipient of aid lashes out, the West faces a familiar dilemma
ReutersThe human cost of Mr Zenawi
CARNAGE returned last week to the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. For the second time since a disputed general election in May, government forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 46 and injuring hundreds more. In June, 36 were shot dead. This time round, a few of the protesters were violent, but the government response was fearsome. Many bodies laid out in the mortuary of the Menelik II hospital had been ripped apart by bullets. Doctors said that, after the first couple of days of skirmishes, almost all the gunshot wounds were in the stomach, chest and head.
Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, regretted the shootings, but said that the police were mostly acting in self-defence. He promised an independent inquiry but had thousands of protesters put in prison, where many had been for several weeks in the summer. Leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), the opposition party behind the protests, as well as some journalists, are to be tried for treason.
This week, the CUD called a general strike to protest once more against the May elections, won by Mr Zenawi, which the European Union has described as “flawed”, and against the shootings. Addis Ababa grew eerily empty, but it was hard to say whether out of defiance or fear. The CUD certainly has pulling power, at least in urban areas, attracting as many as 1m supporters to its rallies. It swept the capital's parliamentary seats in May, despite all the government's efforts to stop it.
Ethiopians prize the ability to speak sweetly but with ambiguity. Mr Zenawi is a master at it. Alternately slick and brutish, diplomats cannot decide whether he is dragging Ethiopia forward or back. Is he the bon vivant who provided sterling service as a member of the Commission for Africa created by Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair? Or is he essentially a rebel leader, who will happily toy with democracy in order to stay in power? With a Marxist education and years of guerrilla warfare behind him, Mr Zenawi instinctively wants to control. He bullied taxi drivers and shopkeepers back to work this week, threatening to ruin the strikers.
Most worryingly, he responded to a measured statement by American and EU diplomats on the shootings by complaining about western meddling. Western countries do have some leverage over Mr Zenawi through the large amounts of aid they are giving to his country ($1.3 billion was due this year); Britain and several other donors have already suspended some of that money.
That sort of punishment may play well with taxpayers at home, but it is not a very effective stick for beating Ethiopia with, not least because it will undermine the very development the rest of the aid money is meant to underwrite. Moreover, Mr Zenawi's supporters argue that his authoritarian methods, however ruthlessly on display in the capital, have helped to complete roads, clinics and agricultural extension projects in the famished countryside, where most Ethiopians live. Blood-spattered as he now is, Mr Zenawi has earned plaudits for growing more food and overseeing one of Africa's more effective strategies for reducing poverty.
Nor is there a clear alternative to him. The opposition is fractious. A slide into totalitarianism might unite them, but probably only temporarily. The CUD has at least four factions, the smaller United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) even more. CUD supporters tend to be Amharas from the superior-feeling north, bitterly resentful of the Tigrayans' lock on power; a quarter of Ethiopians are Amhara, while a bare 8%, including Mr Zenawi, are Tigrayan.
The opposition can also be inflammatory over relations with Eritrea, which won independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Some call for the return of what they call “Ethiopia's Red Sea territories”, meaning Eritrea, by any means. Mr Zenawi is, again, more ambiguous, talking peace while beefing up Ethiopia's army.
Many, perhaps most, Ethiopians and many foreign observers argue that, despite the government's recent bloody brutality, Mr Zenawi is still the best man to keep Ethiopia on a path to development. Perhaps. But the price Ethiopians are paying for that development is going up fast.