From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Mar 09 2010 - 08:28:51 EST
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ethiopian-pm-denies-aid-was-diverted-1918334.html
Ethiopian PM denies aid was diverted
Stung by BBC allegations that Live Aid money was spent on weapons, Meles
Zenawi tells Paul Vallely that the report is based on lies
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
The prime minister of Ethiopia has stepped into the row between Sir Bob
Geldof and the BBC which has claimed that 95 per cent of the $100m aid
raised, by Live Aid and others, to fight famine in rebel-held northern
Ethiopia in 1985 was diverted to be spent on weapons.
Meles Zenawi, who was one of the leaders of the rebel group the Tigrean
People's Liberation Front, is now the country's Prime Minister. In an
interview with The Independent he said that the BBC had fallen for lies put
out by his political opponents on the eve of a general election in Addis
Ababa next month.
"The notion that a decision was taken to spend 95 per cent of aid on the
military is a complete lie," he said. "Anyone who knows anything about the
situation in Tigray in 1984-85 would know that. The logic of that would be
just ridiculous."
The rebels were then fighting the army of the Mengistu dictatorship whose
troops were mainly conscripts who often ran away and abandoned their weapons
when fighting began. "We captured large amounts of guns and tanks. We did
not need to buy arms. What we needed was food. So why would we sell food to
buy arms?" Mr Meles said.
"We needed food because by 84-85 we had an extensive liberated area under
our control. But it was terribly hit by famine. The danger was that the
population, on whom we depended, would leave the liberated area and go over
to the government area in search of food. So we needed the food to keep our
people in our area.
"There would have been no military logic in selling food to buy guns. It
would have been completely suicidal to starve our own people to buy guns. We
would have had no movement if we had had no people. When not enough food was
available we encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to make the long
trek across the border to Sudan."
The BBC yesterday insisted it was standing by its story. It issued a
statement that said: "Aregawi Berhe, the TPLF military commander in the
mid-1980s, told the programme that the relief society connected to the TPLF
received about $100m and that a decision was made that only 5 per cent
should be spent on helping famine victims. The balance, he said, was used to
fund the TPLF and a linked political party. The programme made clear that
the assertion was made by a once high-ranking TPLF figure, now in exile."
The Ethiopian Prime Minister offered some telling detail on timing. "When
the planting season arrived we encouraged all the able-bodied to go back to
plant. That was the summer of 1985. That was when the cross-border feeding
operation began in earnest. The only significant amounts of aid going across
the border from Sudan were in that period."
Significantly, that was a year after Aregawi Berhe had left the area. It was
also a year after a photograph was taken showing a Christian Aid worker, Max
Peberdy, buying grain from the second rebel quoted by the BBC, Gebremedhin
Araya, who claimed he had duped Christian Aid by selling them sacks full of
sand. "Gebremedhin Araya was not the head of finance of the TPLF, as has
been claimed," Mr Meles said. "He was in no leadership position. He was just
a paramedic." Christian Aid yesterday disclosed that Mr Peberdy had also
left the area a year earlier.
Five other leading aid agencies have criticised the BBC report. Oxfam, Save
the Children and Christian Aid were yesterday drawing up a joint complaint.
Band Aid's lawyers were preparing an official complaint for the broadcasting
standards watchdog Ofcom.
Sir Brian Barder, a former British ambassador to Ethiopia, stated: "The
erroneous impression given by the BBC risks doing great damage to future
international disaster relief programmes."
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