Ethiopia: I tried to give Zenawi a hard time

Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, is supposed to represent the whole of Africa at the G20 this week – apart from the South Africans, who are the only African G20 members.

Yesterday afternoon one of his advisers told me she doesn’t want him to be seen as yet another African leader out with the begging bowl. “Why not?” I countered.

For as Meles himself told me in this interview, Africans will die unless the rest of the world ameliorates the effects of the global slowdown on the continent.

Ethiopia itself is still enjoying perhaps double digit growth, but Meles told me he wants an IMF Africa fund of up to $50bn agreed this week, with the usual loan conditions scaled back so those on poverty’s front line can access the money quickly.

I asked him why the world should rally to Ethiopia’s call, given that Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia at the end of 2006 had left many thousands dead. He told me he had no regrets about the invasion, which ended in January; and he refuted our allegations from last September that Ethiopia had been deliberately withholding food from ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden region.

“Give him a hard time,” a Somali friend texted me on the way to Zenawi’s hotel. I tried, but the PM’s feline charm and quick mind got the better of me….

Watch the full interview:

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