25 August 2012
Meles Zenawi: Why He will be Missed
Peter Kagwanja
In Summary
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Stain on his legacy: He reformed Ethiopia’s economy but has been criticised for
failing to increase democratic space and human freedoms
His influence in the political and security arenas puts him in the league of
Africa’s greatest leaders
Meles dedicated his life fighting for the stability of his country and the region
The unsaid wisdom is that be it an absolute
monarch, a sit-tight despot or a reformer on the
seat of power in Addis Ababa, Kenyan-Ethiopian
relations will always sail on like a ship in calm
waters.
use. According to the World Bank, Ethiopia’s GDP
has grown by 10.6 per cent a year over the past
decade, double Africa’s average.
Child mortality has dropped by 40 per cent, and
just under 30 per cent of Ethiopians are living in
extreme poverty (those on less than a dollar a
day), a quantum jump from 45 per cent when
Meles took power.
But the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on
August 20 has, without doubt, ruffled the waters
and thrown the geo-politics of the region into deep
uncertainty.
Meles has left a diversified economy and laid the
foundation for an industrial Ethiopia with new
industries like floriculture, beverages, leather
making, car assembly and infrastructure projects,
including Africa’s largest hydro-electric dam (Gibe
III).
The young medical student who joined the guerrilla
war against the Derg — the Marxist junta of
Mengistu Haile Mariam — in the 1970s as
“Legesse” Zenawi returned triumphantly to Addis
Ababa in 1991 as “Meles”, a nom de guerre he
adopted in the trenches in honour of a fallen
compatriot.
These economic gains at home have their
corollary in a brand of “development diplomacy”
Meles has pursued in Africa.
Years in the bush as a revolutionary infused
personal discipline, committed and principled
leadership and a pan-African disposition into
modern Ethiopia’s third ruler who took power at 36
after the fall of Mengistu’s regime, becoming
Africa’s youngest leader.
Consequently, Kenya and Ethiopia have grown
stronger together as what political scientists tout
as “regional hegemons” or powerhouses in the
Eastern Africa region along the lines of Nigeria and
South Africa in West and Southern Africa regions,
respectively.
Indelible marks
Twenty-one years later, the indelible marks of
Meles’ fine mind, firm persona and pragmatic traits
are all over the canvas of the Ethiopian economy
and society.
Rightly eulogised as an economic reformer, Meles
solicited and put foreign development aid to good
“Our joining the East African community is long
overdue,” Meles told a Kenyan delegation early
last year. He agreed to broaden the EthiopiaKenya Joint Commission from a military pact to
socio-economic cooperation.
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And on March 2 this year, Meles joined President
Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and President Salva Kiir of
South Sudan to officially launch Africa’s most
ambitious project: a Sh1.5 trillion Lamu PortSouthern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport project at the
Lamu Port, with its main components as networks
of roads, railways, an oil pipeline and airports.
related dispute between Khartoum and Juba.
Moreover, despite a calamitous Ethio-Eritrean war
(1998-2000) and persistent flare-ups of hostilities
along the border with Eritrea, Meles will be
remembered for stemming a prolonged civil war
and agreeing to the painful secession of Eritrea in
1993. For this, many diehard Ethiopian nationalists
have never forgiven him.
Critics are hoisting Meles’ failure to strike a neat
balance between development and human
freedom as the great stain on his legacy. He has
been faulted for his intolerance of dissent and
disdain for “liberal activists, hecklers and hippies”
in the streets of Addis Ababa.
He will also be missed in Somaliland where he
maintained
friendship,
short
of
formally
recognising Hargeisa. With Chinese aid, Meles
planned a gas pipeline through Somaliland
territory to the Red Sea Coast.
However, Meles’ human rights record outstrips that
of his communist predecessors.
Laudably, he made efforts to clinch a deal with
Egypt over the use of the Blue Nile waters.
In 2000, he became the first Ethiopian ruler to
allow multi-party elections and private press. The
deeper he dug into economic empowerment, the
more he tightened his government’s version of
“democratic centralism”. In the 2010 parliamentary
elections, his party won 99.6 per cent of the vote,
virtually wiping out the opposition.
Key ally
A key ally of the West in counter-terrorism, Meles
marched his troops to Somalia in 2006 and
allowed the US to base unarmed drones at a
remote airfield. More recently, Ethiopia has
coordinated efforts with Kenya in the on-going war
against the al Shabaab militia group.
Arguably, his record on Africa’s political scene
brings Meles into the pantheon of towering figures
such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania’s
Julius Nyerere and Senegal’s Leopold Senghor.
Since 2009, Meles played a key role in developing
the AU’s position on climate change, becoming
chair of the African Heads of State and
Government on Climate Change.
Under Meles, Addis Ababa is the home of a
reformed African Union and firmly Africa’s
diplomatic capital. With Ethiopia as a member of
the powerful AU Peace and Security Council and
him as the chair of Nepad and Igad, Meles has
been one of the architects of Africa’s emerging
peace, security and governance infrastructure.
Meles dedicated his life fighting for the stability of
his country and the region.
With his demise, his comrades at the helm of the
ruling
Ethiopian
People’s
Revolutionary
Democratic Front must shun power tussles that
might plunge Ethiopia and the region into
instability.
Meles will be sorely missed by the two Sudans
where he has recently mediated border and oil-
Prof Peter Kagwanja is a Kenyan academic and governance consultant who heads the Africa Policy Institute,
Nairobi/Pretoria. This article first appeared in the Sunday Nation (Nairobi, Kenya) on 25 August 2012.
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