Where is meles zenawi currently

Zenawi would tolerate no criticism: in , nearly people died in a crackdown on demonstrations by the opposition, who accused Meles of rigging elections. But some Ethiopians argued that he did what was necessary to stabilise the vast and ethnically diverse state. The much criticised anti-terrorism law, which rights groups have said is far too vague and has been used to quash freedom of speech and peaceful political dissent, has seen multiple opposition figures and journalists, including two Swedes, jailed for lengthy terms.

After overseeing the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia in — run by fellow ex-rebel fighters who had also fought to topple Mengistu — Zenawi returned to war, with a border war leaving tens of thousands dead.

A peace deal led to a tense standoff, with Zenawi refusing to pull troops from the border town of Badme, even after an international court ruled the town belonged to Eritrea. Zenawi also invaded longtime Ethiopian foe Somalia, sending troops and tanks to topple an Islamist regime in , before pulling out the following year in the face of guerrilla attacks.

Unlike many of his fellow African leaders Zenawi never earned a reputation for having a taste for luxury. Speculation that Zenawi was seriously ill grew after he failed to attend an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last month. Diplomats in Addis Ababa had said he was being treated in Brussels for an undisclosed illness, while others said he was in Germany.

The PM dies after battling an unknown illness for two months. Here is a look at his rise to power. Published On 21 Aug He served as president from to , when he became prime minister. Andrew Simmons talks with Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of Ethiopia. He did not say what country Meles' body was in or when it would return to Ethiopia, except that it would be soon. The spokesman acknowledged the prime minister had been sick for some time but didn't immediately seek treatment.

The news came almost a week after the government said Meles was "recovering well" after treatment for an unspecified illness. Bloggers launched a counter of the number of days he's been missing, while citizens took to social media to discuss his whereabouts and exchange conspiracy theories.

The secretive nation had released little information about his whereabouts, prompting rumors and opposition claims that he was dead or facing a life-threatening illness. The government held a news conference last month and announced Meles received treatment for an unspecified illness.

His absence was more evident last month when Ethiopia hosted an African Union summit in its capital of Addis Ababa.

Meles, a key player in talks on the tensions between Sudan and its rival neighbor South Sudan, did not attend. Former U. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Ethiopia under Meles had "played a key role in both the region and the African continent. Ethiopia, a key Western ally often lauded for effective use of aid money, is surrounded by unstable nations such as Somalia and Sudan. Meles has been credited with working toward peace and security in the region, and the Ethiopian army sent peacekeepers to battle the Islamic extremist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Included in Meles' paradigm was a theory of democracy. It would have to stamp out patronage and rent seeking. Developmental states could come in several forms, Meles argued, provided that they maintained the hegemony of value creation, were autonomous from the private sector, stamped out rent seeking and patronage, and maintained policy continuity for sufficiently long to succeed.

A developmental state could be authoritarian, but in Africa's ethnically diverse societies, democratic legitimacy was a sine qua non.

Ethiopia's ethnic federalism and decentralization reflected this. Meles said his preference was to have two competing parties, each of which stood for developmental values, but in their absence the option would be a stable dominant party or dominant coalition, such as Japan or Sweden enjoyed in post-war decades. His critics said this denied them the chance of voting for real alternatives. Hence, Meles' approach to democracy and human rights was all of a piece with his overall theory. Meanwhile, he argued, what meaning did liberal civil and political rights have in a context of abject poverty or political chaos?

Development and a strong state were prerequisites for human rights, and Ethiopia needed to establish these first. Justifiable or not, this is a serious argument that deserves serious assessment. In early , I asked Meles why he had been so reticent about his theory.

He replied that he should not jeopardize Ethiopia's interests by pursuing a personal intellectual agenda that would be sure to draw fire from his numerous critics and detractors. However, he added that his ideas, which had been heretical just a few years earlier, were becoming common currency, and that as the time approached for him to leave office at the elections, he planned to update his dissertation and publish it. Almost 25 years ago, Meles was indifferent to opinion and argument that failed to match his own standards, and was quietly confident that Ethiopians would shape their own history, and that history would prove him right.

Recently, when I asked Meles what he would consider his legacy, he was uninterested in those who hailed his government as triumph or disaster, and addressed only the question of whether developmentalism was becoming hegemonic in Ethiopia. Enough of Meles' writings are in the public sphere to demonstrate that Meles was a truly original thinker. Let us hope that his unpublished papers provide sufficient material to fill out the other, less explored, areas of his intellectual inquiries.

I have read the article by Alex de Waal on the theory and practice of Meles Zenawi and have some views to express on the contents therein. I designed and conducted training program for members of parliament on:. Three things struck about that work. The first was the fear [not respect] I saw in members of parliament whenever the First Lady [Mrs.

Meles Zenawi] who was also chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Affairs took the floor to say anything. The second was a member of the opposition who challenged my views on "representation" by a member of parliament when his offices in his constituency had been burnt down by the ruling party "youth brigade" who said they would do the same to his him if he stepped in the constituency.

The third was another question as to whether the Prime Minister was right to strip opposition members of parliament of immunity for boycotting a session and throw them in jail. After reading the article, those three occurrences flashed through my mind. To an extent they explain some of the theories and practices in the article. Development and a strong state were prerequisites for human rights and Ethiopia needed to establish these first".

Surprisingly the writer says this is a serious argument that deserves serious assessment. All over Africa, so called liberation movements and military coups are justified in the name of freedoms. Even Zenewi's major reason for launching armed struggle was given as: "military dictatorship". The list is endless. They all proclaim they are fighting for fundamental freedoms but once they get in power, they claim these freedoms have to be put aside, create a strong man to ensure development and after that democracy will follow.

Utter rubbish. Sacrificing well established democratic and tested principles for perceived "stability" is like chasing wind. He was lauded for coming up with a new African type of democracy. Later the Ugandan Constitutional Court held this new theory of African democracy to be nothing but a disguised one party system. But that was after nineteen years of a one party state.

Throughout this period Museveni was a darling of the West. Both President Clinton and President Bush even visited during this period of one party rule and praised him as a great thinker. Of course to be visited by two successive American presidents and praised gave him a lot of political capital and he used it to entrench himself in power. He has now been President for 27 years and has said he is still around. Who is fooling who?

Democracy human rights and good governance are prerequisites to a strong state and development and not the other way round. I think that the Zenawi theory is no theory at all. It is simply greed for power. As President Obama said in Ghana at the beginning of his first term "Africa needs strong institutions and not strong men" Unfortunately, it was rhetoric. He never followed through. Zenawi was simply hiding behind dominant parties. His preference would have been one party. Many youths in post colonial Africa were socialists and the few remaining ones who have become leaders still carry that belief but allow political parties for window dressing.

It is all ideological; one centre to drive development as against a system of checks and balances. Africa began with the multiparty system, switched to one party states and is now back to multipartism. I do not believe that Zenawi genuinely believed in two powerful political parties. It simply was not in his line of how to drive development. This explains the impatience most socialist oriented Presidents in Africa have with assertive parliaments.

I agree with Zenawi and disagree with the writer of the article. Diversification is not the answer because of a market economy adopted by most African countries. Diversification will simply encourage subsistence farming.

We are however in an era of cash. The African needs cash to meet modern demands- education, insurance etc. The modern African cannot continue being cashless simply because he can live off the land.

Only specialization will catapult him towards cash. Meles was not interested in the trapping of power, only what could be done with it". If it is true he was frugal, then this must be emulated. Africa is full of Presidents living beyond the means of their countries-Jets and helicopters, palaces, a personal protection security apparatus of gigantic proportions, long motorcades not to mention a string of mistresses and girlfriends all at the cost of the state.

However, on the second point that he was only interested in what could be done with power is very telling. That is the essence of dictatorship.

The correct statement should be "He was only interested in how power was exercised". Chief Economic theoretician who inverted Kissinger's doctrine with a thesis being a blue print for a democratic development state. Yes, we see it all over Africa. Leaders who think without them, the state would collapse. They therefore indulge themselves in believing they are original thinkers when what they are saying is either nothing new or is so unbelievable that citizens can only clap in politeness.

They spend endless nights awake believing they are great thinkers with new answers. They force upon their countries half baked ideas and think they will be recorded in the history books as great men. As a result they overstay their welcome rigging elections and amending constitutions to stay in power.

And when there is a little polite praise it gets to their heads and begin thinking they are god sent. And the longer they stay, the more need to rely on "rent seeking and patronage". The patronage emanates from them. They become the problem to governance and advisers are replaced by cheerleaders leading the state down the drain.