VISITS TO ETHIOPIA - DECEMBER 2006, FEBRUARY-MARCH 2007

I made a 10-day trip to Ethiopia just before Christmas 2006 to participate in the first meeting of the Millennium Council. I had been invited by Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin to join it a few weeks before. The Council consists of a broad spectrum of Ethiopians, including prominent political, intellectual and cultural personalities, representatives of all religious denominations as well as businessmen and regional leaders. A couple of dozen foreign Ethiopianists and friends of Ethiopia have also been named members. The meeting was held in the great circular hall of the African Union, opened by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and presided over by Foreign Minister Seyoum. Celebration of the beginning of the Third Ethiopian Millennium is seen as an occasion to mark the accomplishments of the past decade and a half, set goals for the third millennium and encourage cooperation, reconciliation and moderation among all ethnic groups and political forces in the country. A commendable objective, it is difficult to predict how successful it will be. Some diaspora websites were quick to attack the concept. Many projects were discussed at the meeting and referred to the Secretariat. The Secretariat, headed by Seyoum Bereded, is established in what was once the USIA building in the Piazza. It was turned over to the Ministry of Information by the Derg. The Head of Public Relations of the Council is Mulugeta Asrat who came from England to take the appointment. The symbolism of having the grandson of Ras Kassa Darge and the son of Ras Asrate Kassa serving in this role is, to say the least, politically fascinating. President Girma Wolde Giorgis invited Council members to a huge reception in the National Palace the evening of the meeting.[1]

Large numbers of tourists--both ferenji and Ethiopian diaspora--are expected to come to the country during the EC2000-2001 period and special facilities are being readied for them. 24 hotels are said to be under construction in Addis Ababa, many more in other parts of the country. Special events are being planned in both Addis Ababa and regional capitals. To give Council members an impression of what visitors will see, we were taken on the following day to visit the National Museum (where the bones of Lucy and other recent hominid finds were exhibited and explained), the Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and the new Patriarchate Museum, just being completed.

Impressions of the Capital.

There is more construction under way in Addis Ababa than at any time in its history. A cement shortage was holding up some projects in December, but had been overcome with imports by the time I came in February. The city has grown steadily in recent years and is now estimated to have 5 million people. Large areas of new housing have been built east of the city and in several areas multiple blocks of condominiums are going up. Beggars are still in evidence in the city center and around churches, but there are also many signs of affluence including newsboys selling newspapers everywhere and traffic congestion at rush hours. The Sheraton and Hilton have been enjoying close-to-full occupancy as are most other hotels. New restaurants are opening continually and tourists are much in evidence. I was impressed by the cleanness of the city's streets. The interim city administration is credited by most citizens with doing a good job.[2]

The Situation in Somalia

Concern about the Islamist regime in Somalia was coming to a head while I was in Ethiopia in December. The Islamists were making claims on the Ogaden and threatening military action against Ethiopia. The decision to intervene to oust the Islamic Courts and bolster the Temporary Federal Government established in Baidoa was taken by the EPRDF during this time. Eritrea's support of the Somali Islamists as well as other Eritrean actions harassing Ethiopia were also causing concern. International media reporting of these developments was muddled and deficient. When I returned home at the end of December I wrote a paper outlining Ethio-Somali relations which was subsequently widely reprinted in Ethiopia and abroad. It drew praise from objective observers, harsh attacks from Isaias Afewerki's propaganda apparat. When I returned in mid-February I found Ethiopians generally elated at the success of their army in Somalia, but realistic about prospects for pacification of Somalia and eager to see Ethiopian forces replaced by African Union peacekeepers.

December Travel

I made a Sunday trip to Ambo with Tafari Wossen in December over a highway that is being completely reconstructed but progressing rapidly. I had n o other opportunity for travel outside the capital. The countryside west of the city showed evidence of the recent good harvest and the relative prosperity of farmers. In Ambo we visited the old resort hotel which was badly run down when I stopped there in the 1980s. Its garden then featured massive billboard portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mengistu. Takele Tadesse, a successful engineer in the States, came back a few years ago with money to invest, bid for the hotel and acquired it. He has refurbished it completely, set up an excellent dining room using home-grown organic food and opened a large swimming pool in a park across the road where he sponsors community gatherings with music each weekend. He is building a conference center in the grounds. The hotel attracts both Ethiopian and ferenji visitors from Addis Ababa on weekends as it once did in the 1950s. Another returned Ethiopian has bought and renovated the old hotel in Wolisso (Ghion). The two are cooperating on three-day weekend packages which include one or two nights in each hotel and a day trip in between on the road which climbs up to the picturesque Wonchi crater lake. It is proving popular with diplomats and their families. This kind of initiative is typical of what investors are doing in many parts of Ethiopia.

Publishing - Shama Books.

The December visit gave me the opportunity to work with Shama on the final stages of publication of my 2-volume set, Ethiopia in Mengistu's Final Years, (EMFY). The first volume, subtitled The Decline of the Derg, covering the years 1984-88, had already been printed in India and was due to be shipped to Ethiopia soon. The second volume, The End of Mengistu, dealing with the years 1989 through early June of 1991, remained to be finished. We agreed on additional chapters covering the developments of 1990 and 1991. At the same time Shama decided on a new printing of my history, Layers of Time, to be called a Millennium edition, and I agreed to write a postscript and all bibliography for that. From Israeli Ambassador Ya'acov Amitai I learned that Asher Naim, who had been Israel's ambassador to Mengistu at the end of his "reign", was passing through Addis Ababa. I spent part of a day with him to check details of his experiences with Kassa Kebede and the Falashas at that time.

AAU/IDR and the Adwa Conference

My December visit also offered a good opportunity to consult with Dr. Mulugeta Fesseha, head of the Institute of Development research at Addis Ababa University, about the conference on Ecotourism scheduled to be held in Adwa in February 2007 in which I was scheduled to participate. I agreed to prepare a presentation on the subject on return to the States.

February-March 2007 Visit.

I spent 3-1/2 weeks in Ethiopia from mid-February to 9 March, traveling north to take part in the Adwa conference, then spending a week in archaeological research in Tigray and finally returning to Addis Ababa for four busy days of meetings and discussions before returning home. In the process I traveled almost 4,000 km. by road, observing life in parts of Oromia, the Amhara region and Tigray. Meanwhile I had finished papers on Tourism Development for the Millennium Council, on Ecotourism for the Adwa Conference, on Ethiopia and Somalia (noted above) and a Postscript for the new edition of Layers of Time as well as three additional chapters for the second volume of Ethiopia in Mengistu's Final Years.[3] On the way North I spent two days in Bahr Dar in meetings with Amhara Region cultural and tourism officials. As the Amhara region capital, Bahr Dar continues to develop rapidly. Construction is visible everywhere. Tourism is so successful this year that all hotels were full. Great quantities of teff were piled up in the market for retail sale at prices ranging from B360 to B500 per quintal and the market was well supplied with fruit and vegetables. Mulugeta Woubshet, the Amhara Region National Park Director, is busy with development of the Alatash National Park on the Sudan border, which has been gazetted, and is working on plans for a park along the Abbay from its outflow from Lake Tana to the Tisisat Falls.

The Semyens

On the way north from Bahr Dar (the highway is asphalted to Gondar) I was invited to stay overnight at the new Semyen Lodge which was being prepared to open officially by mid-March. Sixteen km. from Debarek at the entrance to the National Park, it is beautifully designed and conveniently situated on the new cross-park road. My driver and I and a Swiss couple were the only guests. The lodge has been established by an Ethiopian and a British investor and incorporates the latest ecological construction and management features. An attractive native stone central building includes common rooms and dining facilities. A dozen double-room stone tukuls stretch across a ridge above at nearly 4,000 m. with splendid views of landscape in all directions. An array of solar panels provide electricity for lighting, power and heating. After a late afternoon tour into the park as far as Senkaber to view baboons, klipspringers and birds, we returned to a roaring fire in the comfortable sitting room followed by an excellent 4-course dinner around another fireplace in the dining room. The night temperature was practically down to freezing, but I went to bed snug and warm in my heated tukul after a hot shower! Quite a contrast to my first visit to the Semyen at the turn of the year 1970-71, when our party camped for a week and awoke to frost-covered landscape in the morning, and even to my visit in 2004, when the only accommodation was an extremely modest country hotel in Mekane Berhan at the end of the new road that penetrates deep into the area and leads to Derasge.

The Adwa Ecotourism Conference

Dr. Mulugeta Fisseha and his staff had put a great deal of thought and effort into preparing this 4-day conference which was designed to serve as an example for ecotourism development throughout all of Ethiopia with the Adwa area serving as an example of what could be done. Sponsors of the conference, in addition to Addis Ababa University, included the Tigray State Government, the town of Adwa and the Tigray Cultural and Tourism Department. Participants came from federal and regional governments, universities, and tour organizations. As a traveler in Ethiopia over more than 40 years, I presented observations based on my own experience as well as a paper drawing on experiences and examples of ecotourism development in other parts of the world--Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia and China. I suggested aspects of ecotourism for development in Ethiopia: trekking, mountain-climbing, river-rafting, lake- and island-experiences, walking tours of ethnically or historically interesting regions. I also suggested the possibility of developing a Muslim Historic Route to parallel the perennially popular Historic Route that is essentially Christian.[4]. Speakers included geologists, biologists. forestry and wild-life specialists who drew on experience in many parts of Ethiopia. The senior representative of the Federal Government was Dr. Mahamouda Ahmed Gaas, State Minister in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, who made many good observations. Other senior participants included Dr. Tewolde Berhan G/Egziabeher, head of the Federal Environmental Protection Authority; President Endreas Eshete of Addis Ababa University; Archaeologist Kassaye Begeshaw; Dr. Tekle Haymanot G/Selassie, head of the AAU History Department; tourism specialist Tewodros Atlabachew and Tony Hickey of Ethiopian Quadrants which already sponsors Ecotourism undertakings.

The conference attracted well over 100 participants in the Soloda Hotel at the edge of Adwa. Discussions were lively, a great deal of information and experience was exchanged. No strong disagreements in principle emerged, but there were many different views about the pace at which ecotourism facilities could be developed and about priorities that might be met in conjunction with observance of the Millennium. There was recognition that some tourism already taking place in the country should be considered ecotourism. From the second day of the conference onward, participants were taken on tours to illustrate practical considerations. The first tour was to the Monastery of Abba Gerima where the group was welcomed by the monks, shown the tomb of Ras Alula and the famous Segli curtains. The unusual geology of the Adwa Mountains was explained in the course of a drive along the full length of the highway which traverses the area. The next day participants were taken on an early morning tour to the Semayata Kidane Mehret area of the Adwa battlefield where they met with farmers making their living from agriculture in the area. The third excursion was to Yeha, site of the great Sabaean temple, the oldest standing building in Ethiopia, and a small museum.

Discussion during the final sessions of the conference centered on ways in which the Adwa Battlefield could be developed as a major tourist destination for both Ethiopians and foreign tourists: a visitor center, maps and brochures, eventually a well-organized museum, trails with explanatory signs, guide-training and research on the battle and its aftermath. A task force was designated to work on a step-by-step plan for implementation of the proposals that had been agreed upon and consider the establishment of a foundation for protecting and developing the battlefield. The conference concluded with an evening reception and banquet to which representatives of the city of Adwa came along with shimagilles from the area. These include Zenawi Asres, Meles Zenawi's father who lives in a modest house in Adwa.

Post-Conference Travel.

Most conference participants flew back to Addis Ababa when the conference was finished. I wished to take advantage of my being in Tigray to continue archaeological and cultural research I have been doing in recent years. My initial effort proved to be abortive, however. I wished to visit the monastery of Tsereke Berhan Alogi near Dabaguna in Shire, for it is the last of the major monasteries of western Tigray that I have not visited, having already gathered historical information and photographed manuscripts and other treasures at Debre Abbay, Abuna Thomas, Debre Banqol, Qoyatsa, Aksum (including Abba Pantelewon), Abba Gerima and Debre Damo. Fisseha Zibalo, cultural and tourism branch chief at Aksum, did his best to arrange entrance to Tsereke Berhan. We were frustrated by a backward bureaucrat, a petty official in a village beside the monastery who took pleasure in exercising his limited authority by keeping foreigners from getting into the monastery, though I am sure I would have been as well received by the clergy there as I have been at all the others. We did not discuss the problem of backward bureaucrats at the conference, but we should have, for they can be an irrational obstacle to tourism, ecotourism and research of all kinds. Fortunately I had no significant further encounters with such officials of this kind.

Archaeological and Cultural Research.

Tigray Culture and Tourism Director Kebede Amare arranged for an extraordinarily productive, hard-working week of travel to interesting sites at the end of February and the first days of March. I traveled first to Adigrat over the spectacular route via Inticho past Debre Damo. This dramatic highway is being completely re-engineered and prepared for asphalting. Adigrat, where I had not stayed for two years, has continued to grow and expand. The median dividing the 4-lane roadway through the city has been planted with palms, bougainvillea, oleander and smaller shrubs which are beginning to flower. UNMEE's compound was quiet. I was told that UNMEE soldiers are no longer buying up commodities for smuggling into Eritrea because the Eritreans keep them from crossing into the Temporary Security Zone. Contrary to the original ceasefire agreement, Eritrea has almost entirely re-occupied it. Accounts of the hardships the Eritrean population is experiencing are common. More and more young Eritreans are managing to escape into Ethiopia.

This was the height of the season for Gunda Gunde oranges which are carried up each day from the monastery area by men who supply a long line of shops along Adigrat's main street. The drive to Makelle was easy over smooth asphalt all the way. I stayed at the familiar Axum Hotel there, though the long-closed Hauzien Hotel has been reopened as the Milano and is said to be equally good. The Axum Hotel was busy with tourists. Tigray is experiencing a very successful tourist season unaffected by political tensions.

Ato Kebede arranged for an excursion out of Makelle to interesting places in a different region each day: Wejerat on Tuesday, deep into Enderta on Wednesday, Atsbi on Thursday, Agame on Friday returning via Hauzien and the Geralta, Bet Mara on Saturday. Results of these travels in which we were joined by locally knowledgeable men and church officials included two new unexcavated Aksumite sites in Wejerat and a visit to the presumed tomb of Amde Tseyon at the village of Adi Qalebes near Mai Nebri; the old church at Haraqo in Enderta where I photographed a richly illuminated 15th-century Gebre Hamamat; a remote church called Parakleitos north of Atsbi town with good manuscripts; several historic churches in Agame as well as a remote Aksumite site; Mariam Anza north of Hauzien where a huge Aksumite stela said to have an inscription on its underside lies half-buried beside two other broken ones.

The Geralta Lodge

On the southern edge of Hauzien on a rise that affords a splendid view of the entire Geralta I visited a new lodge that has been built by an Italian investor, Silvio Rizzotti, whom I met in May 2005 when he had just begun looking for a building site. He has done an extraordinary job in a year and a half. Though the lodge was scheduled for formal opening at the end of March, we were invited to spend the night, as we had in the Semyen Lodge, but were too short on time to do so. So we were served refreshments, including freshly baked cakes with local white honey, and given a tour of the buildings--a central lodge with reading rooms (among books on the shelf I found a copy of Layers of Time!)--and several large round tukuls built in the style of Tigrayan stone farmhouses with two apartments in each with a double bedroom and a fully equipped large bathroom with water supplied by a deep well. There is a smaller building of rooms for singles, provision for gardens (not yet planted) and a viewing terrace with an incomparable panorama of the Geralta. I experienced a seizure of nostalgia as I recalled trekking to visit most of its extraordinary rock churches during the 1990s.

Return to Addis Ababa.

The Adwa Conference had been well covered by Ethiopian Television. Afterward I was interviewed by the Tigrinya Service of ETV on the economic development in Tigray and relations with Eritrea. In Makelle I was interviewed by a serious young reporter who asked good questions on a wide range of topics, including the situation in Eritrea. I said I found it depressing to think of the sad condition of Eritrea and the poor life of Eritreans across the border compared to the growing prosperity observable everywhere in Tigray and elsewhere in Ethiopia. This no doubt contributed to the vicious blasting I got from the virtual propaganda voice of the EPLF, "Sophia Tesfamariam", a few days later. "She" condemned me as a hopelessly senile toady of the Meles Zenawi. One of my final visits in Makelle was to Abba Mesghenna Woldu to hear about efforts of the Irob to improve life in their region and the activities of the Irob Development Association.

The highway south along the Eastern route was easier than it has been in recent years, for rebuilding and asphalting over Amba Alagi has been almost completed and the route down to Alamata and across the Kobbo Plain to Woldia is entirely new asphalt. The area around Lake Ashangi was green from recent rains but restaurants in Korem had no Ashangi fish. I was disappointed to find that the once outstanding Lal Hotel in Woldia is suffering from overuse and poor maintenance, but the town is bustling with new construction. The route from Woldia to Dessie is still for the most part under construction. Dessie was almost unrecognizable, there has been so much new building in the center of the city. We stayed overnight at the old Tekle Hotel in Kombolcha. To be sure we would have rooms, we had telephoned ahead from Makelle. At breakfast at the Hikmet the next morning the waiter remembered me and asked about the traveling companions who have stopped with me there in earlier years. The next day's drive to Addis Ababa was smooth because the highway is in such good condition. Asphalted main streets through towns and villages now make for much easier passage, though towns are all busy with cars, trucks, horses, busses, donkeys and people. I was struck how all the small towns we passed have continued to grow. The countryside looks increasingly prosperous with more and more tin roofs and, at this season, threshing and winnowing operations were still under way through Wollo and Shoa. Nevertheless ever larger numbers of country people seem to be moving into towns. They come for better access to schools for their children and in hope of finding employment--but there is little. Great numbers of young men pass time on the streets. It is evident that Ethiopia has no shortage of manpower for military purposes, but it badly needs to develop employment opportunities for its still steadily increasing population, which is said now to be nearing 77 million.

Addis Ababa in Early March.

I spent four final days in Addis Ababa, staying at the friendly Ras Amba Hotel. It was filled with tourists and other visitors. The African Union had had its summit while I was in the north and had declared the forthcoming Ethiopian Millennium a historic milestone in all-African history. The Ethiopian government announced that Eritrea had sent agents to disrupt the AU meeting but its schemes were successfully foiled. Eritrea, suffering from defeat of its adventurism in Somalia, persists in efforts to undermine Ethiopia. A British Embassy group was taken as hostages in the Afar during the last days I was in Makelle and taken into Eritrea. The episode attracted a great deal of press attention, but there was (and still is) a good deal of uncertainly about what actually happened. The perpetrators may have been an Afar group hostile to both Eritrea and the EPRDF. The Ethiopian government denounced Eritrea as responsible for the hostage-taking. Though Asmara pleaded non-involvement, why were the hostages taken to Eritrea? Does the EPLF not exercise control over all its territory?

Ethiopians were still reflecting pride and confidence in light of the army's accomplishments in Somalia and satisfaction with US support for the intervention. Tourism continues to attract a large number of visitors. The US African Travel Association has scheduled its annual congress to be held in Addis Ababa 6-11 May 2007. It will get strong support from the government. Visitors will see much evidence that Ethiopia's economy is doing well. Meles Zenawi announced that GDP growth is continuing at over 10%.[5] Newspapers such as Capital and Fortune are widely read because of their good economic reporting. The Reporter covered Somalia developments well and gave a great deal of attention to the Eritrean dissident organizations that were meeting in Addis Ababa during early March. During my final four days I met with senior government officials, journalists and foreign diplomats. I had a good meeting with newly arrived American Ambassador Yamamoto. I gave a lecture on my archaeological researches at AAU under the auspices of SOFIES. I met with officials of the Millennium Council and heard more about their plans. I also worked through final details, and photographs, for my forthcoming publications with Shama and made tentative plans for a new travel book to be called Mountains and Monasteries which I hope to complete by the end of 2007.[6]

Political Deadlock

Efforts of a group of foreign friends of Ethiopia seeking to achieve a reconciliation between the EPRDF and imprisoned Kinejit leaders seemed to have reached a dead end by the time I left. Looking back at this process, I conclude that a decade and a half of well-intentioned foreign democracy-building efforts in Ethiopia, insofar as they have stressed support for opposition parties and elections, have, with the best of intentions, resulted in a negative, unpromising result. External support for opposition parties led their leaders to think almost exclusively in terms of generating foreign pressure on the EPRDF to share power with them. This resulted in neglect of grass-roots political work within the country and to failure to develop alternate social and economic policies to those the EPRDF has been implementing with considerable success and obvious impact. Opposition parties came to rely on the diaspora in the United States and Europe as pressure groups on the EPRDF and let neo-Dergist elements in the diaspora propel them deeper into a stance of rejectionism at home. As a result, when Kinejit actually won most of the seats in Addis Ababa and both Kinejit and Hibret won significant parliamentary representation in the 2005 elections, Kinejit refused to organize a new city administration and Hibret's American arm broke off relations because Hibret planned to enter parliament! If Kinejit had taken over administration of the capital it would have undergone a serious test of its ability to lead and govern. Both major opposition coalitions let diaspora elements bent on revenge against the EPRDF influence them against constructive parliamentary participation. Kinejit has since fragmented while Hibret leaders have agreed to participate and Beyene Petros appeared as a member of the Millennium Council. By adhering to a stance of rejectionism and encouraging violence, Kinejit leaders ended up in prison. They continue to be rejectionist by refusing to engage in realistic negotiations for their release, relying instead on foreign pressure. EPRDF leaders have seen little justification for concessions. The net result is deadlock in the whole process of democratization. Fortunately EPRDF economic and social policies that have evolved since 1991 continue to produce good results. These results might be even more impressive with constructive criticism and participation by other political groups.

Genuine democracy in Ethiopia can develop only within Ethiopia. It is not going to develop as the result of rancorous dialogue between the diaspora and EPRDF or as the result of pressure from foreign governments and NGOs. The ultimate effect of naive good intentions and external intervention in the process has led to little that is constructive. The situation is in some ways parallel to that described with increasing frequency by critics of foreign aid in Africa--which has not produced sustained economic growth or prosperity and in some ways has only heightened economic and social contradictions.[7] Sustained rethinking is needed about both political and economic development in Africa. Ethiopian experience with democratization needs thoughtful examination. I plan to write at greater length on this subject later this year.

I left on the crowded late-evening Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt on Friday, 9 March, satisfied with my visit, concluding that Ethiopia, though it still faces many uncertainties, is continues to move forward constructively--venomous and destructive Eritrean and neo-Dergist diaspora rhetoric notwithstanding.

Paul B. Henze

Washington, VA

23 March 2007