ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9111 OU20 - Ethiopia -- My First Visit
Having won the business in Ethiopia, it was with considerable apprehension that I boarded my flight to Addis Ababa. I was scheduled to be out there for a month, and I always got very homesick and depressed in that situation. Here I was also going into a war zone. It was only a few months since the war ended, and there were still incidents happening. Not long before an ammunition dump had blown up, or had been blown up, and had destroyed a significant part of Addis Ababa. I was very nervous indeed.
Landing in Addis, I was once more taken to the Hilton hotel. However, within a couple of days, I was moved to the Ghion hotel. This was owned by the government, and the army -- who were paying my hotel expenses -- had an account there; and found it easier to fund this. The hotel was very old-fashioned, but reasonably comfortable. Typically when I stayed there I had a suite of rooms. I had a bedroom, dressing-room and bathroom, as well as a sitting room which overlooked gardens to the front of the hotel. It was indeed quite comfortable. Food in the restaurant was sort of western, but rather strange at times. All the same it was quite edible. It also had had an Ethiopian restaurant, open in the evening, but I only ate there a couple of times - when I was entertaining.
The following morning I was collected and taken to my new offices. These were in the same government compound, guarded by tanks and detachments of troops, I had previously visited. This time, though, I was in the Council of Ministers building.
This was a modern building, attached to very large assembly hall where the Council of Ministers used to meet. Its supporting secretariat had been based in a three-storey building attached to it. We were to have the top floor of this. One important reason for this was that the bottom two floors of this building were occupied by the government's crack special forces unit. Where all its key ministers were to be attending tutorials on the top floor, they felt that much safer about any coup happening when they were gathered together in this way. Even so, it was quite disconcerting to wander though the building to discover soldiers lugging heavy machine guns - with their chains of bullets dragging behind -- knowing that these were not dummies. Even worse, they also nonchalantly carried rocket propelled grenades on their shoulders, and -- as these were obviously live -- the thought that they might drop one and blow up the whole building was rather unsettling.
As I said, we were on the third floor. This always posed problems for me when I arrived in Addis. The city was at an altitude of 9,000 feet. The air was remarkably thin, hence the reason why Ethiopian long-distance runners are so good, but it was supposed to debilitate those from the lowlands. In fact I didn't find any particularly significant symptoms, except for the first day or so of having to climb the three floors of stairs -- at which point I certainly got very out of breath.
When I arrived our material was sitting outside in an enormous crate. It took a team of soldiers something like two hours to carry all the material to the third floor where it was needed.
On the third floor we had a classroom, which would seat thirty, an office for me and one for my secretary -- though we didn't get a secretary until much later. In the event, except for the examinations, we only ever used my office. This office, which clearly was previously that of a minister, was luxurious. I had a massive desk, and in front of it was a suite comprising several large - and very luxurious - settees. This was where I worked and taught.
I brought the students together for an initial meeting. They were all there, except the President who always was too busy to visit me -- I had to visit him. I took photos of everyone, only to discover to my horror that I had no film in the camera -- and, what was worse, I never had another opportunity to take any more photos. I then got the students to introduce themselves and introduced myself. Then they all disappeared back to their work.
I should have said that it wasn't just the students who turned up. There were also a large number of their guards, with their loaded Kalashnikov's, who stood outside while I talked with the students. It was quite overpowering to see so many live Kalashnikovs being waved around. Later on I got used to this.
Even when, during some celebration, there was tracer passing the window perhaps five feet away from me I didn't mention this -- since the students didn't even deign to notice it. I was most disconcerted, though, when one of my students, in the middle of the lecture, decided that his shoulder holster was uncomfortable. Unfortunately he was a student who had lost his arm in the war, and hence had some difficulty rearranging it. Accordingly, he pulled out his pistol and was rearranging things with the end of his pistol. At times this was literally waving backwards and forwards in front of my nose just less than half a foot away. I was well aware that if you had a gun in your shoulder holster, you had the safety catch off. Accordingly, it was very disconcerting when I was at the same time teaching the others. Of course they didn't notice it, but I challenge any of you to continue to lecture, without giving any sign of panic, when there is a loaded pistol being waved just in front of your nose.
Such things became common place though. I used to lie in bed at night and hear running battles between troops and bandits, both equipped with Kalashnikov's; and got used to their distinct rattle. David Asch later told a story about having an upset stomach, where what fascinated me - but seemed to mean nothing to him - was his opening: "I was woken in the middle of the night by a bomb exploding outside...."
The only further event that day was when one of the very young looking students came back and -- perched on the end of my settee -- chatted with me. I was desperately trying to remember which of the students he was. Of course I couldn't, there were so many of them. It took almost half an hour before it suddenly dawned on me that in fact he was the Prime Minister!
It reminded me of the story told by Tommy Beecham, the famous conductor, who was wandering through Fortnum & Mason when he was accosted by an elderly woman. He was used to this happening, and he vaguely recognised her, but he couldn't quite place her. He ran through the usual gamut of questions trying to identify her, before he finally asked her "What is your husband doing now?" The lady quite simply said "He is still king." It was Queen Mary. My experience with the Ethiopian Prime Minister at that stage was somewhat similar.
In fact Tamrat was a lovely guy. He was a war hero, but he was very modest. Unlike the others he used to go around in an ordinary car, without a protecting ‘technical’ behind it. He was, though something of an outsider. Whereas the rest were Tigrayan, he was an Amhara: the tribe that came from around Addis Ababa. I liked him immensely, though.
But he blotted his copybook after we finished the programme. He was entrapped by a designing woman, and embezzled something like £1 million from the government. He was thrown in jail, for all I know he is still there. It was a great shame since he was a lovely guy, and I would have trusted him with my life.
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