ETHIOPIA AND BRAZIL ATTRACT PAN-AFRICAN DIPLOMACY

The African Union should give some attention to peoples of African descent in Brazil, writes Okello Oculi

ETHIOPIA SHOULD NOT BE ANOTHER NAME FOR A LAND WHERE THE BLOOD OF CITIZENS IRRIGATES HER AGRICULTURE

‘’ Build bridges, break down walls’’, Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister urges his countrymen. A major wall rose up in the 19th Century when Ethiopia conducted her own colonial expansion and imposed rule by Amhara Coptic Christians over Eritreans, Tigrays, Somalis, Oromia and other ethnic groups. That domination cracked in 1974 when a military coup overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie.

The military regime (the Derg) promised autonomy for nonAmhara but instead consolidated it; inheriting a scotched-earth war against Eritrea. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military dictatorship fell to a coalition of secessionist guns of disillusioned nationalities. Ahmed Abiy had joined the Ethiopian army and joined Oromo struggle for freedom.

The Tigray group around Meles Zenawe led a coalition that used violence to contain Amhara politicians using democratic slogans to win back Empirial domination. Meanwhile, the thousands of Oromia youths who had migrated to Saudi Arabia in search of jobs, returned with a desire to grab political power for their single largest population. As Ethiopia started constructing the ‘’Renaissance Dam’’ across the Blue Nile, Egypt began to see Oromia protesters as useful allies.

Faced with a movement animated by a highly educated and visionary leadership, the ruling coalition opted for handing power to Abiy, an Ethiopian military officer of a mixed OromoAmhara parentage.

Ethiopia, however, holds memories of brutal governance. In 1971-73 drought killed 100,000 peasants while Emperor Haile Selassie was accused of spending over £35 million for celebrations of his 80th birthday. He ordered for official silence over the famine until Canadian and BBC television pictures shocked the ‘’civilized world’’ he was anxious to impress with his pomp. Shame provoked his overthrow and death in 1974.

The military regime also reacted to the drought and famine of 1984-1985 with brutality. They denied relief food to ethnic communities who were fighting against them. They forced over 600,000 people from Tigray and Eritrea to fertile areas in Oromo communities in the south who feared a plot to take over their land.

A progressive policy of building ‘’villages’’ around water pumps, clinics and schools was resisted by those who saw it as a trick for recruiting youths for an army tied down in fighting in Tigray, Eritrea and Ogaden regions. They fled from a severely eroded agricultural economy in which about six million peasants were depending on food relief from outside Ethiopia.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and land-hungry Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar are jostling for influence in Ethiopia. American and European Union capital is hungry for gold, oil and zinc in Eritrea. Iran supports the Moslem Brotherhood. Prime Minister Abiy finds himself sitting on top of a rumbling political volcano.

His radical policy of appointing a cabinet with 50 per cent female ministers; a woman as ceremonial President, and a woman Chief Justice will irritate Moslem and Coptic Christian fundamentalists alike, but lessen ethnic rivalries.

Amhara groups in the Diaspora were often children of rich land-owning officials in Haile Selassie’s aristocracy. It is unlikely that they settled in America and imbibed values of racial and ethnic justice. They supported violent opposition to Meles Zenawe’s regime despite the tremendous economic development he brought to Ethiopia. It is almost certain that American support for their victory in future elections will carry the price of reversing China’s vast economic investments in railways, road transport, and industries, including textiles.

Abiy’s anti-corruption campaign has been criticised by Tigray coalition partners as a case of cleansing their people from top security posts. The former Chief of Intelligence, a ‘multi-billionaire revolutionary’, is in hiding and would almost certainly be a strategic asset in plans by Tigray competitors for power.

All in all, Mr Abiy needs massive injections of insights from member states of the African Union for him to succeed in building on the glorious achievements of Meles Zenawi- a regime he served in as builder of its IT communications system. Ethiopia should not be another name for a land where the blood of citizens irrigates her agriculture.

The African Union also needs to lend urgent attention to peoples of African descent in the Americas, especially Brazil. In 2013, President Dilma Rousseff started a policy of importing Cuba’s medical doctors and nurses. As Professor Ko of Yale University has noted: ‘’ Brazil produces a lot of medical doctors but they attend the wealthier sections of society rather than the poor’’. This pattern of unequal access to medical care is found in Britain, North America and economies where doctors need to earn rich fees from patients to enable them repay loans they took to study lucrative but expensive disciplines like surgery.

Since 2013, a total of 38,000 Cuban doctors have served in Brazil and treated over 63 million patients. Brazil’s newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro, however, hates policies which benefit Afro-Brazilians, women, homosexuals. He abhors the fact that Cuban doctors are willing to serve in slum areas, in deep forests of the Amazon region, and dusty areas of Brazil’s north-east.

He is repulsed by reports by Carlos Lula, the Health Secretary for Maranhao that if the 417 Cuban doctors currently serving there are withdrawn ‘’they would be hard to replace’’. The National Lobby of Mayors has stated that 29 million Brazilians ‘’could be left without basic health care’’. The majority of them would be Afro-Brazilians. They deserve diplomatic and material support by the African Union.