ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9190 OU21 - Ethiopia -- Student Groups
Because we had a relatively small number of students, ranging from 10 to 15 in total at any one time, but we had much greater than normal resources -- that is myself, or the others, as tutors 24 hours a day - - we split them into quite small groups.
In this way Group Two contained the young, up-and-coming officers in the Ministry of Defence. This was a really ambitious group. It was also intellectually very strong. On the other hand, because they were so ambitious, they were much more difficult to teach. They knew what they wanted to know, and I was not certain that this was what I wanted teach.
Group Three was made up of the people in the relief organisations. Thus, on one hand we had what was the relatively conservative RRC, the central relief committee, and also the Socio-Economic Committee in the government itself. At the other end we had young tigers of the relief industry from REST, which was the Tigray relief committee, and also from the socioeconomic committee in terms of transport working in Tigray.
Group Four was the people from the Ministry of Information, as well as some related people in the socio-economic committee. Mixed in with the groups were also the people from the EPRDF , which was Ethiopia-wide political party which had been set up to replace the TPLF -- which had been the purely Tigrayan party.
All this was administered by Dr Fasil Nahum who was my contact in the Prime Minister's office, and was - I only learned much later on -- also a senior government minister. Coordinating it on behalf of the British Council was Rosemary.
You will notice that I haven't mentioned Group One. This was a higher-powered group than the other groups who met in my office; where I had all my equipment, computers and in particular an overhead projector. These other groups came to me. Group One, on the other hand, I went to -- and had to carry all my material with me. It comprised, in essence, the people who ran the country. Thus there was Meles Zenawi, the president, Seeye Abraha, the minister of defence, and Tamrat Layne, the Prime Minister - who was a less frequent attendant than the others. These three made up the junta which ran the country after the end of the civil war.
There was also Sadkhan Gebretensai who was Seeye’s chief of staff and quite often there was also the head of intelligence.
In the case of this group we met in the President's conference room. This involved quite a rigmarole. I would turn up with my various books and slides at Dr Fassil's office in the main executive building. He then would receive a telephone call giving us the necessary security clearance, after which we walked through to the far end of the building where was the way down to the President's Suite. We passed through several guard posts until we arrived at the Presidential Suite itself.
Within this the President had a very pleasant office, but which was in some respects quite modest. I didn't often go in there, except when I had a face-to-face meeting with him and with no one else was there. His conference room, which was much like any other conference room, was across the other side of the hall.
The first item of business, on arrival in the conference room, was always the offer of a drink by the President's butler. I always had Coke, and as - usually was the case in Ethiopia - this was ice cold. In the hot weather this was more than welcome..
The others then gradually turned up. They arranged themselves quite naturally into an order of precedence with the President at one end and Chief Of Intelligence at the other.
Meles was very dominant, but not in the status-based way others might be, but by his intelligence. He was by far the brightest pupil we ever had in the Business School and managed to get distinctions in every subject he took -- six of them. This was not because we gave him special treatment. Indeed I made certain that every bit of his work was checked twice; to make certain we weren't giving him any extra marks. It was purely and simply because he was so intelligent, even though he was answering in his third language; the first was Tigrayan, the second was Amhara and only the third was English.
To counter his dominance, I used to deliberately teach from the opposite end, away from him, so that the less dominant students were closer to me. I also was one of a few people who was allowed to take the micky out of him, in order to lighten the atmosphere. I guess I took my life in my hands, quite literally. But he was a wonderful guy; not merely modest but desperate to learn.
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