2300

A DANCE THROUGH THE FIRES OF TIME

9513 ETHIOPIAN TRIUMPHS – 1990s part 2

There were two major elements which dominated the 1990s for me; and I described the second of these in the last chapter. The first, however, was my work in Ethiopia.

Towards the end of the 1980s, Andrew Thomson started to expand the Business School outside the United Kingdom.  In the initial  stage, though, this was almost entirely in Europe.  I remember the School building having days when it was full of Polish or Czechoslovakian delegates; who were desperately trying to obtain the franchises for those countries.  In fact, in this, Andrew was very successful; for such overseas countries eventually came to account for a substantial part of our certificate business.  On one certificate course, which I later ran, we had something like 2,000 students studying in Eastern Europe.

In the midst of this we had an approach from Nigeria.  I was interested, as I had always been, in extending education to the Third World. Accordingly, where everyone else was dismissing it, I decided to put forward a proposal.  In this I was assisted by Giles - who ran our outside publications, in essence the books that we franchised to outside publishers.  Between the two of us we put together a sound proposal.  However, things started to go wrong when we realised that our ambition -- of running very cheap MBAs for poorer Nigerians -- was being sidelined by the crooked businessmen in Nigeria; who clearly intended to pick it up for a very cheap price, and then market it at a high-price to the elite in Nigeria.  We dropped the project like a stone at that point.

It did have one positive outcome though.  One day I was strolling down the corridor and saw Andrew coming towards me.  Just as passed me he said "You're Africa aren't you, David".  I couldn't think what he meant, and then I remembered Nigeria.  Not knowing what his question might lead to, I diffidently replied in the affirmative. In reply Andrew said "Well I have an interesting proposition you might like to follow up." The proposition was Ethiopia.  Accordingly, I contacted the British Council in London, and it turned out that they were fronting a proposal to teach the MBA to some members of the Ethiopian government. Having very quickly sussed it out as a possible runner, I immediately persuaded the Open University to let me fly out to Addis Ababa. I don’t think that anyone else in the UK realised just what might come from such humble beginnings. I certainly didn't

It is a long way to Addis Ababa, and the 12 hour overnight flight flattened me.  Fortunately I was met there by the car from British Council and taken to the Hilton Hotel -- something I never expected to see in a third world country.  Accordingly, I had a very comfortable room overlooking the slums, the shacks, of Addis Abeba. It was a strange experience. The television was showing a news item about some criminal offence in Leighton Buzzard, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.  Yet out of the window I could see the African township stretching out into the distance.

I was there to ensure that the intellectual level of the prospective students, and in particular their academic track record, was sufficient that they could handle our MBA.  In this respect I interviewed all of them, or what I thought was all of them, one by one.  In reality, as I later learned, they were really interviewing me rather than the other way round.  The interviews took place in the old palace but, if that sounds impressive, like many of the old buildings in Addis Ababa it was made out of corrugated iron.  The approach to it was, though, impressive.  At the top of the road by the Hilton there was a burned-out tank from the end of the Civil War, which had finished only a few months before.  I well remember journalists describing this incident on the news, and I thought that the tank in question had been somewhere in the wilderness.  In reality it was 100 yards away from the bar of the Hilton, where the journalists spent most of their time during the war!

More threateningly, there were real tanks watching us as we made our way to the main entrance to the Council of Ministers building; which was protected by tanks and by troops with Kalashnikovs.  We eventually were allowed into the compound and then moved through to an even more secure area on one side of it.  After a more searches by troops with Kalashnikovs, we were eventually led - on foot - to the old palace.  As I said it wouldn't be impressive if set in London, but it was a big building and it was palatial inside. 

This was the where I was to interview my potential students.  As one rather gruesome aside, during the day I used the toilet off the conference room a number of times.  What I didn't know, until several years later, was that Haile Selassie, who it was assumed had been murdered by the previous government, was - as a final insult - buried just six feet under that toilet.

In fact we needn’t have worried. All the students were all of a very high quality.  As they had been members of the guerrilla army, their background was almost entirely as military officers.  But they impressed me with their intellectual capabilities and I had no problem to deciding that they were of sufficiently high calibre material for us to deal with.

I then went back to his home with the Director of the British Council to discuss my findings.  His home was fairly typical, for one of the Western Diplomatic Corps.  It was surrounded by high fences and beyond them -- once more -- the shanty towns.  He had of course a number of servants.  One of these opened the gate -- since security was important.  Again this house was tin roofed, as was everything in Addis, but it was quite palatial inside.  The servants on the other hand lived in something like the stables which might be attached to a British country house.  But I guess they were well looked after. Anyway, I reported my findings and we decided we could go ahead with the project. He mentioned in passing that I'd been invited to dinner that night, but he couldn't come since he'd been invited to cocktail party American embassy that night.  I guess he regretted thereafter the fact that he didn't come with me; as will become clear as you read what happened that night!.

I then went back to the hotel to prepare for the promised dinner with these students. This was going to be held in the Ghion hotel; the only other sizeable hotel in Addis at the time. 

Things then started to change up a gear. The phone went, and it was the ambassador's assistant to explain that in fact that dinner was going to be hosted by the Ethiopian Minister of Defence.  The importance of this was that Ethiopia was then run by a troika of three rebel leaders.  One of these was Meles Zenawi, the president, another was Tamrat Layne, the Prime Minister, and the third was, Seeye Abraha, the Minister of Defence.  The dinner, as I have said, was now being hosted by the latter.  Even more of an honour, however, he had been in charge of the rebel army during the war, and turned out to be one of the great military strategists of the late 20th century. It was, thus, indeed a great honour that I was having a dinner formally hosted by him.

I turned up at the Ghion hotel, and met the ambassador -- James Glaze, the first ambassador I had ever met since my time at university -- and we chatted; trying to work out what it was all about. You don't meet ministers of such high rank without there being some reason for it.  All of a sudden his cavalcade arrived.  The minister was in an armourplated car, with a number of protection officers. The car itself was closely followed by what was called a 'technical' -- a jeep with a heavy machine gun fitted on the back.  It was a very impressive entrance.  Other cars also followed.  Thus, started my first meeting with Minister of Defence; Seeye Abraha. The others with him were, I later worked out, his senior military colleagues and in particular the head of intelligence.

It was a life changing moment. A couple of hours before I had been an ordinary – rather junior - lecturer at a  British university. Suddenly I was thrust onto the international stage dealing with heads of government.  I physically felt change overtake me- almost minute by minute - for the first time in my life. But, even though his army had not long before killed half a million troops in the final route, he turned out to be a very pleasant person and I had no problem relaxing in his presence.  In any case, I had no experience of diplomacy at this level and decided the only way I could handle it was to treat him as an equal and laugh and joke with him as I usually did.  Thus, I took liberties which I'm certain embassy staff would never have done.

Thus we sat down to dinner.  It was fairly conventional western dinner, and there was plenty of it so I filled myself up. Unfortunately, my subsequent performance was not particularly helped by the fact that, after eating this very hearty Western meal, I suddenly discovered that this was to be followed by a full Ethiopia meal; and it would have been an insult to refuse this!

Over the first part of the dinner the ambassador asked some questions about the civil war itself. I remember a couple of memorable stories.  One of the key ones was about the crucial battle of the Teodras, which was the turning point - and indeed the end - of the civil war.  It had been seen by the West as a lucky breakthrough by the rebels.  Seeye, though, pointed out that they had been planning the battle for more than two years, setting up the intelligence lines as well as the supply lines. This was far longer than happened even at El Alamein.  He also explained that, some seven years before, they had planned the campaign to the end of the war, and had been accurate to within one month of the actual date.

Amidst this banter the ambassador was also negotiating for a Kalashnikov that he could take home to add to his own collection.  Of course he could put it within the diplomatic bag without any trouble. But, to Seeye’s obvious amusment, he was very insistent he wanted one with a walnut stock not the a plastic stock.

Another story about the war, told by Seeye, became my favourite which I repeated many times later. It was about how they handled their prisoners. When these were captured they were given three choices. If you asked Westerners, as I later did, what these choices were, they were almost bound to suggest that one of the choices was that they would be shot.  In fact the three choices were; to join the rebels, and a number of them did and were very brave in support of the revolution.  The second was to be taken across the border to Sudan to live there.  The third one was the most surprising.  It was quite simply that they would be allowed to go home. Admittedly, they had three months of indoctrination -- albeit just lectures -- before they were sent home. Not only did this policy give the rebels the moral high ground, but it was also pure genius in terms of military tactics.  Thus, the prisoners were eventually freed to go back to their homes, under the dictator Mengistou. He, immediately recalled them into the army.  As a result, in every major battle almost every company of his soldiers, when they came under heavy fire, had people amongst them who said "What should we do? Should be go home?" And they all then put their hands up and surrendered. It was typical of the military brilliance of Seeye.

The latter part of meal, though, was taken up with more serious considerations.  At the time Ethiopia included Eritrea; with Eritrea wanting to go its own way - that is seceding.  Seeye made it clear that the Ethiopian government supported this, since Eritrea had been their partners in the civil war.  The problem was that, in recent years, no country had ever seceded from another in Africa.  He was therefore negotiating, in effect, British government support for this. In particular, the ambassador was being asked for Eritrea to be recognised almost before it seceded.  There was a lot of banter about this, with James Glaze ducking and weaving as ambassadors are supposed to do in such a situation. 

One final anecdote: the Ministry of Defence cruelly took the micky out of our ambassador about his lack of knowledge of what was happening behind the lines, especially in case of the battle of Teodras. In particular they pointed out that they knew about the new water systems being installed at the embassy in case of the government falling.  The ambassador was visibly shaken, since it meant that there were spies in his own embassy.  He came back, though, with the memorable quotation that "I wanted to put some spies behind your lines, you know the usual thing - businessman or academics - but MI6 wouldn't allow them".  I sat there, as an academic, wondering where this put me!

As the dinner ended, my contact in the government -- Dr Fassil -- took me aside and told me that I would be meeting the Minister of Defence face-to-face in the morning.  He also discreetly said "Could you please tell the ambassador that we are perfectly serious about the secession of Eritrea and suggest that he clears this with his government".  Thus, for the first time, I found myself as an ambassadorial runner; carrying messages of international significance! I found I was in the middle of negotiations for the secession of a nation! In a matter of a few hours, my life had changed out of all recognition.

The morning after my ground-breaking dinner with the Minister, I was taken to the Ministry of Defence, the only time I ever went there.  I was ushered in to the office of Seeye Abraha, the minister. I had expected him to talk about the training of his subordinates.  In fact, I soon realised, he was actually talking about his own education.

Seeye Abraha, or Seeye - as I have always thought of him though in the Ethiopian tradition his (Coptic) christian name should be taken as Abraha -shared some bigger than life features with the fictional heroes of adventure writers such as Earnest Hemingway. He was ruggedly handsome, one of my female colleagues fell for him in a big way, and he was - to a degree – charismatic as all leaders have to be. But, unusually for someone whose deeds deserve to enter into history, he was self-effacing. You will certainly never have heard of him, and few others ever have. Yet, if the truth was known, he was one of the greatest military figures of the last quarter of the 20^th century.

I never found out anything about his earlier background, though it must have been somewhat privileged, for – when my knowledge of his life starts – he was at university studying medicine. It was the 1970s, and the communist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, had not too long previously ousted Haile Selassie; the Ras Tefera still beloved of the Rastefarians. The momentous decision, which Mengistu then made, had a sound Marxist pedigree; Mao Tse Tung had just done it as part of his Cultural Revolution. It was to send the university students out into the country to work on the farms. Mengistu was, however, to regret this when, after seventeen years of revolutionary war, they eventually returned – at the head of a column of tanks.

As a student from the Tigray province, where the rebellion started, Seeye eventually joined the rebel army. He described how, with mounting apprehension as to what his future might be, he took his last drink as a ‘free man’, in a bar in Asmara, before setting off to war. In view of his training, and his almost pacifist convictions, he became a medical orderly. Like everyone else in the rag-tag army, though, his only possessions were a blanket and the Kalashnikov rifle which was the common currency of the times. For almost a decade he was to sleep in ditches or under hedges, but almost never under a roof, all the time with this trusty weapon at his side. Indeed, it was soon realized by his superiors that he was much more adept with the weapon than he ever was with his medicine. Thus, from the humblest of beginnings, began his military career.

The army he had joined had no great resources at its command. Indeed, the story is told of how, at the beginning, it had just two shotguns and five Lee Enfield rifles. Against it was ranged the military might of the Derg, the communist government, and that in turn was backed by the overwhelming might of the Soviet government. Paradoxically, the rebels too were Marxist – but this counted for nothing with the Soviets, who pumped in massive amounts of military aid; including a complete air-force and literally thousands of tanks. It was for this reason that the TPLF, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Force as they liked to be known, briefly flirted with Bulgaria – then a leper even amongst communist states – for the simple reason that it was the only other Marxist nation opposing Moscow!

The outcome was that, throughout the revolutionary war, they never received a single piece of military aid from the outside world. This contrasted with almost every other successful revolution; where, for example, the Taliban in Afghanistan were resourced by the US and the rebels in Southern Africa were supported by Cuba. As a result, every bit of the TPLF’s military equipment had to be captured from the Derg forces. Thanks to Seeye’s tactics, though, they were incredibly successful in this respect, and ended up with thousands of captured tanks under their control, so much so that the end of the war featured massive tank battles, and its warehouses were full of more munitions than they could ever use.

Even food aid was withheld from them by the Derg. All the food paid for by the Band Aid appeals went to support the Derg armies, since Mengistu was using the famine in Tigray – the home of the TPLF – as a military weapon. In the process he quite deliberately killed a million civilians, where the even worse drought of ten years later only resulted in the deaths of 8,000. As a result, the rebels had to carve, by hand, roads through the Simian highlands – which rise to 18,000 feet - for heavy lorries to bring in from Sudan what little aid they did receive. Even then the trucks could only run at night, where they were bombed by day.

As the war progressed, Seeye was gradually promoted, until – as the 1980s dawned – he became the general in charge of military planning; and ultimately their war-time leader. This meant he no longer had to sleep in a ditch. Instead he and his staff were housed in bunkers dug into a 2,000 foot high cliff face in the north of the country. There, underground, they were safe from the air-force who – during daytime - bombed anything that moved; even the farmers had to harvest their crops at night. At night, though, the Derg pilots could not fly, so the cliff face - lit up by the thousands of fluorescent lights from inside the man-made caves – reportedly looked just like Manhattan.

Inside their own cave, Seeye and Meles – who handled all the diplomatic contacts and after the war became the president – had their Spartan bedrooms and a library; for both of them never gave up the learning they had started together at university. Seeye also had his map room, with a vast table spread with the maps of Ethiopia, on which he planned their campaigns. The one which was still there at the end of the war still showed the vast, sweeping movements of their armies as they converged on Addis Abeba.

Above all, Seeye’s genius, which eventually made him the most successful general in the last quarter of the 20^th century, was in strategy. Five years before the end of the war he even predicted, correctly, in exactly what month his army would roll into Addis. His greatest victory though, the one which should have been on the front pages around the world, but never was, was the final battle of Teodras.

The battle, when it came, was indeed on a monumental scale; especially when it was supposedly conducted by a rabble of a guerrilla force. In fact, by then the warfare was almost traditional in its scale. Indeed, at the heart of the battle was a conventional tank battle involving something like ten thousand tanks, split evenly between the two sides; possibly, up until then, the largest tank battle since World War II. The quarter of a million highly trained troops under Seeye’s command were opposed by approaching a million Derg conscripts. However, the outcome was inevitable. The TPLF lost only ten thousand troops, where the Derg army was routed; and in that rout something like half a million of them perished. Thus it was that the TPLF’s armoured column rolled into Addis Abeba, meeting almost no resistance.

His genius did not end with that final victory. He stepped aside and let the more diplomatic Meles, who had been in touch with the leaders of the nations around the world throughout the war, take over as President. He even helped negotiate a generous peace settlement with the defeated Mengistu, who then fled to hide in Harare. He finally withdrew to become Minister of Defence, with his reduced army of 100,000 troops acting as a guardians of the new peace. Until the war with Eritrea, which he was called back from retirement to fight, his army only fought one major battle. This was against the US backed OLF, which tried to restart the civil war. This new war lasted just three weeks; since, after all, he still had the best army in Africa and the OLF only had mercenaries.

Paradoxically, before the war to come between the countries, he also successfully negotiated the secession of Eritrea, the first ever such move in Africa. He had also masterminded the new government’s move from Marxism to social democracy, albeit on the pragmatic basis that this was more likely to put bread in the mouths of the near-starving peasants, and – with the new President – introduced genuinely democratic elections; which at last made them, or at least Meles, for Seeye still managed to hide in the shadows, the darlings of Western governments.

Anyway, returning to the events of my first visit to Addis, there I was sitting in the Ministry of Defence opposite this person who was to become my hero; gradually realising that he was one of students we were going to teach.  He then added, rather mysteriously, “There may also be some others of us”.

I then reported back to the ambassador at the embassy. When I quoted what Seeye had said to him he was very thoughtful and said "Surely he, didn't mean the Prime Minister and the President"; though, as it turned out, that's exactly what he did mean.

It was impressive enough visiting the embassy.  The embassy was situated in several hundred acres of grounds going up to the top of Mount Entoto. It had its own stables and, more important, it had the only golf course in Ethiopia.  These riches were bestowed by Haile Selassie, because the British put him back in power after the end of the war. 

We were thoroughly searched on entering the gate, since security was still very high after the civil war. The Chancelry, where the ambassador had his offices, was even more secure. You had to be let through a series of bullet-proof screens before you got anywhere near his office.  His office was very modest, although large enough to hold a number of visitors. In fact the main part of my first meeting was concerned with the secession of Eritrea. I repeated to him what Doctor Fassil, my contact who I didn't realise until much later was a senior member of government, had told me to pass on to him.  He was somewhat taken aback that the message came via me, but he soon got used to that and discussed with me what it meant. It was a major diplomatic move. 

I had realised the previous night that I was out of my depth in terms of the level of diplomatic contact I was being thrown into.  It was a strange experience, something I had never experienced before.  When I was leaving university I had wanted to work for UNESCO or in the Third World, but never had been able to.  Yet here I was handling diplomatic contacts, at the highest possible level, in terms of the secession of a whole country.  It was magical, but somehow quite alarming

Before I flew back, the head of the British Council arranged for his driver to take me to the top of Mount Entoto. Addis Abeba itself is at the height of 9,000 feet, on the plateau which covers most of Ethiopia, and Mount Entoto rises up above it to 12,000 feet.  It was an stimulating experience.  Equally interesting, though, I was able to see some of the small farms there.  They irresistibly reminded me of the Welsh farms of my youth

On the way down, we passed the women carrying wood back down to burn in their homes.  As we went down I had my window open and, as we slowed, this young girl - I guess she was eight or nine years old - looked in at window at me.  She smiled and she was radiantly beautiful.  In some respects it summed up how I was to feel about Ethiopia.  It was the start of my love affair with that country.

I came back to the Open University from Ethiopia in a high state of enthusiasm; with my life changed. I came back through the night.  The low point of this was landing at Jeddah to refuel. Jeddah is on the Red Sea and as such is not just hot but humid.  Even at midnight it was 100 degrees in temperature and 100 percent humidity.  Hence, when they opened the aircraft door, it was like a steam bath rolled in, and we had to sit in that for an hour. Even so, I was still bubbling inside with the magic of it all.

Back in the OBS, I persuaded everyone to support the project.  This was not difficult task, since it was obvious that it was going to be a feather in the School's hat.  Accordingly, I gathered together the group of chairs of the MBA who would have to support it, and explained the situation to them.  I got unanimous support, and they were almost enthusiastic as I was; as indeed was Andrew.

With the aid of the admin people I then worked out the quote which I thought might get the business. As usual we put together what we thought was a realistic quote.  Almost inevitably, as evidenced by previous quotes for similar business, this would have lost us a significant amount of money -- since you never think of all things that will need to be put into it.  But we were desperate to get the business.

I then went down to a meeting with the Overseas Development Agency (ODA) on Victoria Street.  They were going to be the funders for the project, although the initial approaches had been made by the British Council and they would supervise it. I sat down with them and started to talk about our view of the possible approaches.  The students in Ethiopia desperately wanted to study economics, since they thought Western economics had to be the answer to the Marxian economic theory they had been taught previously.  I carefully explained to the ODA that the best antidote, and the best approach to their teaching, was to teach the MBA instead.  Not least, they could obtain a master's degree for three credits where they would require seven credits to get a bachelors degree in the rest of the Open University.  In this, at least, my suggestions carried the day. 

I became aware, however, that there were two factions at this meeting.  On one side of the table were the management of the ODA, who were not exactly against the project but were not enthusiasts.  On the other side of the table, in effect, was just one person; who turned out to be the representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

I had my quotation available; not just to read out but as printed copies in the form of a handout for everyone.  However, before I was able to present this, the ODA management quite baldly asked the FCO representative "Do we really have to do this?"  The FCO representative quite simply said "Yes, it's in the national interest".  At which point the ODA quite simply said "Okay. With that go-ahead let us put together the package".

I was astounded since, at this point, I hadn't even presented my quote. So I frantically doubled every figure in the quote.  I didn't give them copies of it. Instead, I read out all figures that were in it -- just doubling each of them.  Thus, it became one of very few such OU ventures that actually did break even.

Back at the OU, however, the Vice-Chancellor was not so happy.  He, quite correctly, pointed out that the project was totally outside the OU mainstream.  It was not about distance teaching, such as that we normally did though there was a significant element of this, but it involved a considerable amount of face-to-face teaching by leading experts which was not playing to our strengths. Accordingly, he vetoed the whole project

Rising to the challenge, I contacted the representative of the FCO who I had met at the previous meeting, to get his Permanent Secretary to lean on PC.  Accordingly, the Permanent Secretary of the FCO contacted the Vice-Chancellor and discreetly persuaded him to change his opinion.  It was reported, at that time, that the Vice-Chancellor said - about me - that "I will never speak to the guy again". In fact he did, and we became good colleagues. He even invited me to dinner, which was a sign that he saw me as an up-and-coming academic.  Later on he even invited me into the DTI task force that he was involved in.

Thus was approval for Ethiopia project obtained.

There was a great deal to do before we started teaching in Ethiopia.  We had to put together a complete programme; of a type - a mix of distance and face-to-face teaching - which the OU had never delivered before.  Originally this saw me teaching in Ethiopia in three-month stretches.  Fortunately this never happened, and I was able to cut back to two weeks at a time.  But it was not a prospect that I particularly looked forward to.

In addition we had to bring together all the material and equipments we needed for our offices in Ethiopia.  There were hundreds of books, all the course material - which was as extensive - and a number of PCs and printers.  All in all this weighed several tons and had to be air freighted out in advance. In fact, in common with most things sent by air in this way it was inordinately delayed, and arrived at almost the same time as I did.

Realising the diplomatic sensitivity of the mission, I contacted the FCO and asked for a briefing.  Thus it was that I visited the FCO's marvellous Victorian palace on Whitehall.  Very few people get to see inside it. The thing that impressed me most, as I was taken through to the offices, was the Durbar Court. This was created for Queen Victoria when she entertained the Indian rajahs.  It is the marvellous confection of mosaics.  In contrast, the offices which surrounded it were pretty dingy and rundown, but that's always the fate of government offices.

My contact, who was the desk officer in the FCO, was a very bright young man; but I was never quite certain of his role.  So much of my work seem to revolve around SIS activities, and specifically MI6, that I always had a suspicion that he worked more for them – or possibly the FCO’s own SIS operations - and not just for the mainstream FCO.  Not least, the fact that my quote of £½ million for the project was immediately accepted, and just as quickly funded when there were government cutbacks on everything else, seemed to me to indicate that it was coming out of SIS slush funds.

Even so, the meeting was essential and was excellent in terms of the detail it gave me.  As one aside, I remember him saying we don't want to let Ethiopia slide into the same position as Somalia.  This was just before the Americans were driven out of Somalia; and the whole place once more became a disaster area.  I remember him specifically saying "Somalia is basket case, which will take decades to recover" as indeed still seems to be the position.

In terms of Ethiopia he gave me a very good appreciation of what the FCO knew.  The country was run by the triumvirate of President, Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence. By that time, of course, I knew that all these were going to be our students. He also explained how they had spent 17 years fighting their way out of Tigray province to capture the capital.

Most important of all, he explained to me what our role was to be. Theirs was a Marxist government, even though – to confuse maters - the previous government it had overthrown had also been Marxist.  However, the new government wanted to bring the country into the global economy and as such were starting to move towards social democracy.  It was our job to encourage and guide that move.  I put my own point of view to the FCO, which thereafter I insisted on with all my staff in Ethiopia, which was we could not interfere in the way that Ethiopia developed.  At that time, around the time the Berlin Wall had just come down, there were many so-called consultants rushing everywhere in Eastern Europe desperately selling their solutions as the easy answer to communism.  I thought this was potentially a disaster, as in many ways it was, and I didn't want this to happen in Ethiopia.  Hence, I said we would never provide definitive advice to the Ethiopians, but only help them come to their own decisions.  I'm glad to say that the FCO agreed with this approach, and over the whole of the four years that the project lasted we stood by this principle. 

It was very difficult to maintain this stance, however, for you would see their eyes light up as a new subject came up -- albeit in all innocence on our part -- when they saw this as a key area for Ethiopian development.  At that point we had to back-pedal and insist they make their own decisions.  Obviously, our teaching still had a major impact on the perspective they adopted in taking these decisions.  But, we were not going to take those decisions ourselves.

The FCO agreed entirely with this. The FCO, on the other hand, also made sure that I was aware that my reporting route led through the embassy as well as through the British Council.  Thus, on each visit I reported to the Ambassador.  In his absence I reported to the Head of Mission who, for a long time, I thought was the deputy in the embassy. It was only some time later I found that, of course, the deputy was the Deputy Ambassador.  The Head of Mission was instead the head of intelligence, reporting to the SIS.  Thus, I too was one of those academics who was out there on behalf of MI6!  I was never formally made aware of this. On the other hand they never needed to, since I provided reports of all my activities, and everything said by the Ethiopia government, without any requests for this.  With my direct access to the President, I guess I must have been one of their top operatives!

On the other hand, I was quite open about this with the Ethiopian government itself.  I quite simply said that I would be reporting back everything they told me. So if they didn't want it to get back to the embassy then they should not tell me about it -- or at least should ask me not to report it.  In fact, as far as I could make out, they never did hold anything back.  They saw no reason, for everything they were doing was -- they (and I) thought -- totally above board.

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 sitting-room, bedroom, dressing-room and bathroom, 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 the 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 particular problem with the symptoms, except for the first day or so after arriving and 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 had previously been that of a senior 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 I 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 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. 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 sides 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.  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.

Indeed, all three members of the junta who ran Ethiopia were fascinating characters.  Between them they had run their (rebel) side of the civil war; and had then taken over to run the peace.

Meles Zenawi was clearly the dominant figure.  He certainly was intellectually dominant.  But he was also very modest.  I remember him calling me in one-day when he got one of his early essays back and asking me to criticise it ruthlessly.  I took it away and poured over it for a couple of days.  It was one of best essays I had ever read.  So, when I went back to him, I said as much.  He was disappointed; he desperately wanted me to improve his writings.  I truthfully said that, as a writer myself, he was as good as me even in his third language.  I didn't think he needed to improve.  Even so, he insisted I went through the whole essay word by word, polishing it so he could understand the best way of handling it. 

My main contribution, though, was about handling his face-to-face contacts -- particularly in terms of PR.  I don't know that I should have worried about this either, since he came across in his frequent television appearances with a wonderful PR image.  Admittedly, this was very modest image -- certainly not that of a demagogue, but that's a superb image for a leader in modern world. During the war itself he had been second-in-command to Seeye, and I suspect he handled the various diplomatic contacts.  When I visited his bunker I noticed that they had telephone numbers of all the leaders around the world, and long before they got into Addis they must have been working their magic on these.  Though the Western press knew nothing about them, I'm sure the Western leaders did. In the bunker I also saw that there was a large library of books which he and Seeye shared. Even while they were under siege they were still busy learning from every book they could lay their hands on.

This brings me to Seeye Abraha, for whom I had the most admiration. Not least this was because, having been great leader in the war, he stepped aside for Meles to run the peace -- recognising that Meles would be better at this than he was.  Seeye was not as academically brilliant as Meles, but he had a genius for innovation -- which made him both a superb partner for Meles but also a brilliant military strategist.

The way Seeye ran the army was totally different to any other in the world.  There was none of the spit and polish that other armies consider essential to discipline. As far as I could see there was no drilling, and their uniform was comprised of anything they could find.  In fact the only significant part of their uniform, until they got new uniforms when they arrived in Addis, was that they wore rubber sandals. Indeed, this became their emblem; when their opponents laughed about how ill-prepared they were. Thus, for the celebration of the first anniversary of the end of the war, their literature featured -- of course -- a dove flying with an olive branch in it beak, but the military elements consisted of a Derg helmet crushed under the rubber sandal of a rebel.

There was a complete difference in the way that the soldiers were motivated.  Thus, when the time came for them to storm a machine gun post, or whatever, unlike Western troops who are trained to obey orders without question, the troops on the ground actually took a vote amongst themselves as whether they were going to storm it or not -- knowing full well that they were likely to die.  They always chose storm it, but it was by their own choice. This meant that these soldiers were the best in Africa, and among some of the best in the world they; since they were so highly motivated in what they were doing.

The one technology that had strengthened their work in the war had been the CB radio. The whole operation had been coordinated by the CB radio. They had none of the other communications technology that we're used to.  Indeed, all the weapons that they had amassed - including several thousand tanks - were what they captured from their opponents. 

Eventually, they were as well equipped as any modern army -- except for an airforce.  The result of this later aspect was that they operated mainly by night when the Derg airforce was grounded.  Indeed, their bunkers - which were man-made caves carved into the face of a 1,000 foot high cliff in Tigray province - were their sanctuary from the patrolling planes by day; since the air force could not see where they were. But at night the cliff lit up like Manhattan, with each cave having fluorescent lighting driven by generators.

The history of civilisation in Ethiopia goes back many centuries, long before that of most of Europe.  It was supposed to be the land of Sheba, the nation of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. It was also where the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to have been brought to rest -- and it is still supposed to be in a temple in Axum.  Certainly, it had been the first country to take up Christianity, and its Coptic religion was accordingly the oldest one of its kind in the world.

Over the centuries it had remained unconquered, since its high plateau -- at 9,000 feet -- meant that it was almost impossible to invade.  Even so, over the centuries its various emperors had fought for ascendancy, and the control of the country had switched regularly backwards and forwards between the two tribes; Tigray in the North and the Amhara in the South, based on Addis.  For the last century it had been the possession of the Amhara

The greatest character in recent history had been Haile Selassie. He had called himself Ras Tefera, claiming a link with ancients emperors, but in fact he had come from common stock and had won control of Ethiopia by a coup. On the other hand his influence stretched far beyond Ethiopia.  The Rastafarians in the Caribbean were named for him, and wore the red and green colours of Ethiopia.  They believed that, as the Lion of Judah, he was the great leader of the black nations

The first invasion to succeed was a prelude to the Second World War, when Ethiopia -- then called Abyssinia in the West -- was successfully invaded by the Italians. They didn't stay long, only for five years or so; but they had influenced parts of the country.  Indeed, despite their invasion, they are held with some affection by a part of Ethiopia population. They were eventually driven out by the British Army, and accordingly the British were held in even greater friendship by most other Ethiopians. This was the reason why, despite the fact that they were Communist, the rebels in coming to power had asked for their education to be provided by Britain

Some 30 years before my coming out to Ethiopia, the Eritreans, who had been incorporated into Ethiopia by the Italians, demanded their independence; and, when this wasn’t granted, started a guerrilla war against the centre -- which was still ruled by Haile Selassie. This was the background which the British press understood and reported on.  Not long afterwards, there was a coup and the Communists took over control.  Call the Derg, they were led by the ruthless dictator Mengistou.  He was probably more ruthless with his own supporters than anyone else.  I heard first hand reports of his wandering around the old palace wearing a gun on his hip and shooting down opponents in his own government who offended him.

This is the point where my students came into the picture.  Students at Addis University, following the precedent set my Mao in his cultural revolution, they were sent out to work on the farms. They didn’t come back until 17 years later, for they started a civil war of their own; to free Tigray province. Needless to say they started by fighting alongside the Eritrean rebels.  On the other hand, by the time they entered Addis they were by far the dominant part of this coalition. Their war went on for 17 years.  It was led by the Tigrayans, since it was based in that province of Ethiopia, and all its leaders fought in the bitter war.  Each of them, even the leaders, only had a blanket and a Kalashnikov as they spent much of the 17 years sleeping in the open.

There was also another faction opposing the Derg. This was the OLF: the Orrumo Liberation Front.  However, they chose not to fight the war themselves but to withdraw to America -- where they spent 20 years lobbying American governments, and living in some comfort if not luxury.  These were supposedly based on the Orrumo part of the population, who were the largest part with around 50% of the total.  Although they had no impact before, their presence came to have a significant impact once the civil war had been won.

The government of Ethiopia, made up of the rebels from Tigray, was unlike any other I have known.  The relationship between them was not just as colleagues but was more like that of family members. Thus, they had been fighting in the field together for 17 years and their relationships were strong as any between family members. This extended family ran to no more than 100, and probably was as few as 50.  I knew most of these 50, and I saw them more often than other members of the government did. Certainly I saw Meles far more often than his own Cabinet did.

I became so close, in fact, that in effect I became part of their family.  I was treated as such by them. I well remember, when I was trying to negotiate a deal with RTZ and I asked Seeye what leverage I had in negotiating for him, he said - quite genuinely - "Just tell them who your friends are". I think that was the greatest compliment I have ever been paid.

My membership of the family was most evident around the time of the first anniversary of the end the war. The first of the social occasions I attended came out of the blue.  I was sitting in my office, dressed in my sports coat and slacks, when Dr Fassil bounded in and asked me to go with him to the opening of a an exhibition of photographs of the war. 

I thought little about this and got my driver to take me to the exhibition.  Despite the crowds of cars the, we managed to find a parking place. It was only sometime later that I realised why this was case. My particular Mercedes had a palace number plate.  There were only 20 or so palace cars, and we each had a special number plate. That meant that, wherever I went, I had precedence over all of the other cars. This explained why I had always been able to get around so easily and had no difficulty parking. Potentially, though, it had an important downside -- in that mine was the only palace car that wasn't armoured!

When I got into the grounds of exhibition hall I saw there were various people lined up near the entrance to the building. By then I knew that the Prime Minister, Tamrat, was opening the exhibition, so I started to walk towards them. As I got closer, I realised that there were two quite distinct groups of people. One of them was made up of government people, all black faces. I should say at this stage that because Ethiopia had never -- apart from the short period under the Italians -- been colonised there was no sense of a colour bar there.  I, of course, would never have recognised such a bar, but it didn't exist anyway. The other half were all white faces, and seemed to be dressed in their best suits. I decided I had better join the whites.

When I got amongst them, sticking out like a sore thumb in my sports jacket, I realised that they were all referring to each other as 'Your Excellency'. They comprised the ambassadorial group in Ethiopia.  Amongst them were the American Ambassador and European Union Ambassador, both of whom rather stood on their dignity. James Glaze wasn't there, since he was up country. The Russian ambassador, on the other hand, was quite friendly as in particular was that from the Vatican -- known, in the obscure language of diplomacy, as the Papal Nuncio.

Just then Seeye arrived and joined the black group.  There was something of a commotion amongst the ambassadors, who were nudging each other and saying “He's the Minister of Defence”. Obviously none of them had been able to meet him.  Seeye turned round at that point and looked at me.  He raced across grass and said "Hello David" This was silly, since I only seen him a few hours before, and in view of the secrecy of our mission I wasn't supposed to know him. So I found myself saying "Go away, you are not supposed to know me". He raced back to the other group. There was some considerable interest amongst the ambassadors who, after that, pressured me to find out what on earth I was doing.  I could only say that I was working in the Prime Minister's office, which – in terms of my physical location -was in fact true.

The main celebration that year was the rally in the main square of Addis Ababa. Once a year  during the rule of the Derg's dictator, Mengistou, he used to have a massive military parade through the square; followed by a speech in which he ranted on literally for five or six hours at a time.  This time it was very different. Even so, I got there early in order to get a place.  All the dignitaries were to be on the stand overlooking the massive parade ground. But I chose to be with the Ethiopian people sitting on the ground. I guess that I couldn't hide myself away, since I was only one of two white faces amongst all the black ones. Ultimately more and more people poured into the square and I later learned that there were eventually something like three-quarters of a million people attending the meeting.  It was wonderful atmosphere and I was even willing to listen to Meles' speech which lasted something like an hour - in Amharic. Then the procession began. It wasn't troops, as it had been with Mengistu, but was far more emotional. First of all there was a hoard of coloured umbrellas moving through the square in front of the stand.  This was very emotional for everyone, since the umbrellas were the traditional symbol of the heads of the churches; and this was the first time they'd been allowed to walk together in this way for the best part of two decades.  Then came families carrying pictures of the dead.  It might be thought these would be pictures of the dead rebels, but they were in fact the pictures of the dead members of the Derg party -- as I said Mengistou was even more ruthless in killing them than anyone else.  As this happened, overhead military helicopters were strewing grass over the crowds. Ethiopians traditionally celebrate by strewing their floors with fresh grass. It was quite spectacular, especially since the helicopters seemed to be almost a head height -- though I guess they must have been flying at about fifty feet. All in all it was a wonderful experience,a very emotional experience as the nation came together.

When I had first arrived in the square I had noticed a guy in a suit, where in the heat I was in my casuals. He was trying to hide behind lampposts, whilst following me around; and I assumed that he was a member of the secret police.  Eventually, as the crowd built up, he came and stood by me; in his best suit and carrying a brief case.  When I said to the government the following morning that everything went well, they said that before it started they had thought there was to be the incident, and they had large numbers of troops mounted on the roofs nearby.  I suddenly realised that my secret policman was in reality bodyguard.  What was worse was that I realised his suit was to hide the fact he was wearing a shoulder holster.  And, even worse, he almost certainly had - in his attache case - a sub-machinegun to protect me.  Fortunately nothing had happened, but I dread to think what would have happened should he have used that sub-machinegun; because we all would have been trampled to death in the resulting panic.

The most impressive experience, though, came that night of the anniversary.  I was invited to join the party which was attending a command performance given for the president.

I should say that I had had my own -- rather negative -- part in this.  For several days, when I had gone downstairs in our building – the Council of Ministers -  I had discovered that the soldiers had, as I thought, brought in their girlfriends who were dancing to music.  This music was playing throughout the building on the PA system. I managed to persuade them to cut it out, since it was interrupted my teaching of the ministers.  Accordingly, when I went down later I discovered the dancers still dancing, but very quietly. It was only later that I realised these were the national dance companies preparing for the command performance which was being held in the theatre next door.

When I got to the command performance, I discovered it was only for the ‘family’.  Thus there were only about 50 or so of us. The point was that this performance was in the Council of Ministers chamber, which must usually have held at least 1,000 people - in two tiers - all focused on the stage. It was weird. There I was, in this vast emptiness, sitting with the president and just a few members of the government family!

Having said that, the dancers were superb, where the programme was compilation of contributions from all three national Ethiopian dance companies. I had never been a great one for country dancing, but this was absolutely marvellous. It lasted something like three hours, but I was enthralled all the time.  They had so many different regional dances and each one was spectacular in its own way.  It was a wonderful performance. I suppose, also, it was a great privilege that something like 150 dancers were performing for just 50 of us.

I increasingly found myself acting as a go-between with the Ethiopian government for the first British Ambassador, and then – through him - for most other western ambassadors. The problem the ambassadors had was that they were denied almost all contact with the government of Ethiopia. The reason for this was that the new government was absolutely terrified of being corrupted or even of being tainted by exposure to the outside world. They'd seen how the Derg had been corrupted by all the influences, not just by the Russians who were their main supporter, but by western corporations and governments. As a result they had resolved to maintain their innocence, their purity, by having no contact at all at the top level. Of course contact still had to go on at the lower levels of government; but the western ambassadors were not happy with this -- since they wanted to know what was in the minds of the leaders of the new country.

This turned out to be my role. Thus, I went backwards and forwards between my various contacts, sometimes Meles but mostly Seeye, who I got on particularly well with. I well remember a couple of conversations with him. One of these was started by my saying very directly "The western ambassadors don't understand what you mean by communism." He laughed "I don't know what it means myself. I guess we're no longer even Communist but are moving to social democracy. I think that communism just means a loaf of bread. I see my job as getting food into the mouths of our starving people. I would do anything that is necessary for that, even selling myself to the devil." I don't think that the western ambassadors quite understood what that was all about.

Another question, this time to the President, was “How did the governments see its role in leading Africa”. The previous Ethiopian governments had seen their role as leading the whole of Africa. Indeed the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) was based in Addis at this time, having one of the biggest complexes of buildings there. To my, and the ambassador’s surprise, Meles reply to this was that he wanted to make Ethiopia a big player in the Middle East; ranking alongside Egypt. This was a complete reversal of strategy -- though I am not convinced that it was ever put into play.

In order to facilitate communications, after the year or so of my acting as go-between, I arranged with the President to set up a contact group. Eventually he and I worked out who was a suitable minister to handle this and the western ambassadors put forward James Glaze as their representative. Accordingly, my role as contact was diminished.

James Glaze was a lovely guy. He was a wonderful Ambassador for Britain, but totally different to the normal kind. He loved Ethiopia almost as much as the United Kingdom. Just as important, Meles and the other ministers recognised this was the case and trusted him, and respected him.

In the meantime I was involved in two major sets of negotiations. The first of these was with the World Bank and the IMF. As an incredibly poor nation, Ethiopia was looking for a first tranche of one billion dollars, and then the second one of a similar amount, to start its reconstruction programme. The World Bank was going to fund this, but as always the IMF had to get involved. I was called in once more to see James Glaze, who said that they had the usual stand-off between the country and the IMF. Both were digging their heels in, taking impossible positions. My job was to persuade the Ethiopian government to give way. I didn't relish that, since I thought the IMF was a bad influence in such situations. But nevertheless I went off to talk to Seeye.

At that time, the IMF had effectively ruined a number of countries. However, I suggested to him and Meles that we sit down and look at what the major problems really were. At that time the IMF always demanded what it called a structural adjustment package. In other countries this included significant changes to the various government institutions, especially the financial institutions. As Ethiopia didn't have these, there was no real problem here. The major problem, which had been disruptive elsewhere, was that the IMF invariably insisted on the devaluation of the currency - ­and that was the main demand in the case of Ethiopia. It looked an impossible situation. However, what we worked out was that what they were talking about was the official exchange rate. In fact, the official exchange rate was meaningless, since most of currency came in and out illegally and was rated at about half the level on the official exchange.

Accordingly Meles and Seeye, and I, worked out our strategy. The first part of this was to throw the IMF off the scent. Thus, I orchestrated a campaign where the government complained of being raped by the IMF -- as everyone else had been. When the IMF demanded negotiations, we complained even louder, and pointed out the devaluation would destroy the country; but of course, with the real illegal rate being what mattered, this was not actually important. Our real intention was to persuade the IMF to modify their argument to take into account what we wanted in return. We had worked out that the one thing that would be affected by any devaluation in the official rate was fuel imports. Accordingly, we put forward the demand that fuel imports be subsidised, so that the devaluation did not have any impact on them. The IMF gladly accepted what they saw as a small price to pay.

The IMF thereafter quoted this as being one of their most successful negotiations ever. What they didn't realise, of course, was that the Ethiopia government got everything it wanted. The devaluation had almost no impact on the price index, which rose by just 6 percent over the next year; and the economy took off.

It was the sort of negotiation I really enjoyed. It was really a giant game of poker. The IMF simply never knew what our cards were, or even what rules we were playing by!

Most often my reports to the ambassador were face to face or by telephone. Just occasionally, as in the example here, I reported in writing:

James Glaze                                                                                   15 August 1992

United Kingdom Ambassador

Addis Abeba

Your excellency,

I have just spent an hour and a half alone with the President, during which time some points emerged that bear upon the conversation we had yesterday: so I will detail these below;

1) He confirmed the view that the government is undertaking planning, on a massive scale - but it is taking its time to get this exactly right. He observed that ('as farmers') in Tigray they moved at a slower pace and thought more deeply - the hectic pace of the big city is not for them. In particular, he stressed that they were determined to keep their roots in the country - and not to be corrupted by the city as had been so many African governments. They plan over a very long timescale - as you know from their military campaigns - and are trying to do in ten years what Britain did in 700 (from the time of its first parliament - his knowledge of UK history is better than mine!). For them a year in politics is a short time (to paraphrase Harold Wilson's saying).

2) He confirmed that over the next few months there would be a flood of new developments, as the work of the task forces was completed. Their first (very clear) priority would be the country - where 90% of the population live; this was where their strength lay in any case. They did not see Addis as being the whole of Ethiopia, though, on the other hand, they recognised it was an important part of it and must also be catered for. They had very deliberately moved slowly to understand how the bureaucracy worked before starting to make changes.

3) As a matter of principle they did not announce promises, in case they had to break them, and they had (rather naively, they now realise) expected people would eventually see the results for themselves. But they recognised they had to communicate better and would now be announcing things as they happened - though still not promising them in advance. Even so, he thought there were few (even in the diplomatic community?) who were perceptive enough to see just how far reaching were the changes they were making - a view I concur with (since the concepts we were discussing in terms of government were far beyond anything the West has implemented - though they were a blend of free market economy/democracy with long term planning and heavy involvement of the people).

4) They found the World Bank easy to deal with (much preferable to politicians and journalists). They were very happy with what was proposed, though the problems of fuel and fertiliser costs remained.

5) They recognised their shortcomings in finding out the complaints of the population, and wanted the diplomatic community to help them find out where things were going wrong. They clearly trust the diplomats and see them as valuable allies in this respect - and, you will be delighted to hear, he saw you as being pre-eminent among them. The Minister of Defence had reported that my lectures on Marketing (covering the customer and markets as well as marketing research) had been extremely useful (in fact he had obviously been fascinated by the subject - which is interesting, and reassuring, in view of their moves to a market economy), so the President requested a copy of my book to study this material as well. So that you know what they are thinking of, I enclose a copy of it for you too.

6) More specifically they had involved the diplomats in the observation of the election because they genuinely wanted independent observers to tell them what was going wrong - and how they should improve. They take the report seriously and accept everything in it - though they do point out that it is their first real election ever, so it is not surprising that there was some chaos. I think they are resigned to Western governments commenting on it, and I only said (very generally, as a personal comment) that I thought he was possibly right in thinking that these remote governments might be tempted look it at in the context of their own cosy domestic political scene - though I knew that the ambassadors here were very supportive of this government on the issue. As requested, though, I did not mention what you told me about the actual position.

7) In terms of the OLF they think that this is probably defeated politically as well as militarily in the Orrumo regions. In the context of the saying "Guerrillas are fish which swim in the water of the rest of the population" (Mao?) he made the point that the water was simply not there. Many guerrillas had even been captured by the farmers rather than by the army, and there was little evidence of any support being given by the civilian population to them. The results were much better than they had expected - and they judged this to be because the OLF had failed to capture the hearts and minds of the people. In fighting the OLF forces the army had deliberately only used hand weapons - and had not used heavy artillery or tanks (and the airforce was grounded), so that casualties amongst the OLF (and of course the civilian population) were minimised.

8) In terms of your economic group, he is very much in favour of it. He would like the donors to get together as a group to control the aid operations as far as possible themselves.

9) It looks very much as if Kassu Ilala will be the member of your group, but this may be better than you think since he is working very closely with the Prime Minister on the task forces - and indeed is taking over some of the PM's work so that the PM can complete his assignments for the Open University! So, as I suggested that the PM should be involved (since he is at the centre of these important developments), Kassu may be a reasonable second choice - since he too may be well informed and influential. I mentioned Abdul Megid Hussein, but the President said he was probably too involved in other projects. He added that all his best people were too overloaded.

I hope these notes are helpful. If you want any further information you can get me on my Addis number (551073) until Tuesday night. After that you can get me on my home number - 0044908679759.

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 was made up of  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 the transport group 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 was 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. They 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, 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. First thing, 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 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 Tigray and 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.

It is always a joy to teach students in small groups, and those in Ethiopia were rarely more than five or six in number.  In such small groups it is possible to give individual attention and the pace can go several times faster than in larger groups.  The students learn more, and teachers enjoy more.  Even better, the teachers themselves learn more, by interaction with such small groups.

In Ethiopia I certainly learned a considerable amount from the students.  Not least, almost uniquely for OUBS students, they were approaching everything from a Marxist perspective. This threw a totally new light on the material in the MBA, which by then was becoming somewhat hackneyed.  I well remember Seeye's group, when we got involved in economics which was their favourite subject, asked me to define what was the central tenet of Western economics; especially, most recently, of monetarist economics.  The immediate answer was that, to my surprise as much as theirs, I didn't really know. It was not something we – in the West – even considered. We just accepted the ‘market’ as a fact of life. They, on the other hand, were very clear about what Marxist economics had said on this topic; it was about improving the lot of the people.  This was a very seductive idea, and would have been found seductive even in the West -- had people known about Marxist economics.  After an hour or more of debate I eventually had to admit to them that the central tenet of Western economics probably was greed.  It was, in any case, driven by the idea of maximising the amount an individual could get from the rest of society; typically as some form of ‘profit’. Accordingly, the underlying value, which drove this, had to be some form of greed.

Their faces visibly dropped on coming to this conclusion. Remember that they were a government that had forsaken Marxist economics in order to move to social democracy and Western values -- including Western economics.  It was a blow that the Western values were so base. However, Seeye quickly pulled himself together and commented "Well if it is necessary to accept this, in order to feed our people, then we will have accept it".  It was a very sad comment on Western values and in particular on Western economics.

In general, the groups spent a lot of time in discussion.  Such interaction is the ideal way of teaching. Here the interactions were quite fascinating, in view of their very different background.  There was also a difference between the groups, partly because of their interest and responsibilities, partly because of the intellectual abilities -- thus the first group was always (as led by the President) the most high-powered. But in all cases the level of intellectual debate was very high. Even so, it took some time to get them started on their TMA's, their Tutor Marked Assignments (the essays on which they were marked). But that is always the case, due to the responsibility it throws on the individual to motivate themselves, it is a very difficult process to get into.  Moreover, they were starting at the point where other students might already have spent two years in this mode.

For me another great bonus was that I had to teach the whole of the MBA, not just my own subjects.  The arrangement was that, for every course, the chair who developed it would teach them for half the time and I would teach them for the other half.  It is true to say that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it.  Thus, I learned the whole of the MBA by teaching it.  I never got an MBA, and most of my colleagues didn't even have MBAs -- since these were relatively new qualifications.  But I certainly could hold my own with any MBA and, of course, I later did get a PhD. 

The tutorials typically took place in the evening. At the weekends I ran them during the afternoons as well.  This meant that I worked almost every night and was able to spend the day working on my marketing dictionary.  The computer facilities out there were good, so I was able to write not just that book but others as well.

We stayed in the Ghion hotel for the best part of two years. We then we moved to our own government guesthouse.

This was a quite luxurious house. I imagine it had been the house of a government minister in the previous Derg administration.  It had two bedrooms, one of which was very occasionally used by other visitors.  My bedroom was self-contained and had an ensuite bathroom. It was very comfortable indeed, and had a television, though the English language broadcast only accounted for one hour every evening. I was, incidentally, disappointed that the broadcasting was so parochial.  The news items were always of ministers doing this, opening that, and especially of Meles greeting visitors.  But when I got home and watched our own television news I realised that most television around the world is very parochial indeed -- global news stories rarely dominate the headlines.

In the context of these meetings with other world leaders, Meles used to go out to greet these VIP visitors at the airport. His cavalcade used to roar down the dual carriageway outside our new offices.  The procession was very impressive; with beautiful, classic US cars. Meles favoured (and I coveted) a beautiful 1960s American limousine.  All these, of course, were armoured, but they were also accompanied by motorcycle outriders and technicals.  All this happened with horns and sirens blaring and with the carriageway sealed off all the way to the airport.  It was very impressive, exactly as it was meant to be.

I once asked Meles why he went through this rigmarole.  It was some time since the end of the war, and I thought it wasn't that dangerous for the people to come in unaccompanied -- though not long afterwards the Egyptian President was nearly assassinated on his way in. Meles said, quite simply, "I don't need it, but it is what they expect. They are used to having the full royal treatment, and I simply can't deny them that. The real advantage for me is that that I get half an hour or so in the car with them in each direction; uninterrupted by anyone else.  That's when we do our business.  The rest of the time we are constantly interrupted by our aides and in particular by the press”. It gave me a new perspective on diplomatic relations.

Returning to the guesthouse, downstairs there was a hall and lounge, though I never used that, and a large dining room.  In the dining room we had a very large table, which must have been able to seat 15 to 20 people.  I sat in the lonely isolation at one end of this, while my steward produced the food. I had a full complement of servants which, I suppose, amounted to three or four in total. Some of these did the cooking, others the laundry etc.  I suppose you might think this was a luxurious way of life, but as they didn't speak any English, it really did not add that much to my comfort.  Pat, when she joined me, was horrified to discover that, although they proudly had possessed a heated tray for the meals, it was never used and the food was lukewarm when it arrived. More to the point, that was that was how Ethiopians preferred to eat their food.

Breakfast was usually some form of fruit, typically mango, together with coffee and western bread. In the evening it was usually some form of Ethiopian stew, which was slightly strange but quite edible. With this we always had their Ethiopian bread, called Indira. This is made from a cereal called Tef, and was cooked on a large skillet - so that it is very thin and rubbery. The bubbles in it give it the texture of foam rubber.  In actual fact it is quite edible, with a rather vinegary taste. The only problem was that, eating it day after day, it ultimately became quite boring.

For lunch, by myself in the office, I used to just have a Pot Noodle or an instant soup - which I brought in from the UK.  The diet was, for once, good for my figure

Prior to this time we had been based in different suites of offices at various locations in the main government compound.  Eventually, though, they moved us out of the compound to the building next to the guesthouse; which was an annex for the Prime Minister's office, directly opposite the entrance to the Hilton hotel. 

What was especially useful was that I could now walk through gap in the wall from the guesthouse to the office, and vice versa, and occasionally did this during the day. However, I was forced to accept the ceremonial whereby my chauffeur picked me up in the morning from outside the guesthouse and drove round the block to deposit me at the office.  It was nonsensical, but at least he had something to do.  The rest of the day he used to sit outside in the car, waiting in case I wanted to use my car. Incidentally the car was a Mercedes, which in the high-altitude wasn't that powerful. More important it wasn't armoured!

The guesthouse was set in about half an acre of gardens, and -- more unusually -- these were patrolled by a detachment of 20 to 30 troops with Kalashnikovs.  I was never certain whether they were there to protect us or to act as backups for the ‘New Palace’ across the road which was used by visiting dignitaries. Whatever the reason, they were still there to protect us. Pat was fascinated to find them following her around the garden as a sort of guard of honour!  The only people I think they really protected us from were the prostitutes on the road outside, for it was a favourite pick up point for these -- and in bed at night I could clearly hear them calling out for clients.

Our new offices were in a two-storey building which, as far as I could see, was otherwise almost deserted.  But that was all right by me.  I used to get my exercise by walking around the hallway which surrounded the inner courtyard.  More important, I had my own private loo, since the Ethiopians were not particularly good in the use of their own ones.

We had a store room for our various bits of equipment and materials, but essentially the facility contained an office for my secretary -- by then I had one -- and a large room for myself.  Once more it contained the obligatory massive desk, but this time the chairs were much more like conference room chairs; but that was OK for a teaching environment.

My secretary was very diffident, and for a long time I thought that she was not very bright.  However, I eventually found she was very competent and I began to understand the subservient role played by women in their society.  I guess she was also employed by the intelligence services.  Certainly our calls were monitored, as was our computer.  Once I got back to discover that the spooks must have been in over lunch and – caught off guard by my early return - had got the files back in the wrong order!

Myself and the ambassador actually used this as a device.  If we wanted to say something to the government which he certainly couldn't say directly, and in addition would even be difficult for me to say, we used to phone each other and have a long conversation about the matter in question.  In this way the government there got to know, through the telephone tap, what the British government's position was; without having to worry about the diplomatic niceties.

I used the same technique when politicking raised its head between the ambassador and the OU.  I wanted to make certain the government knew that it was the ambassador was causing problems not the OU.

I only took one excursion during this time -- apart from the holiday with my wife -- and that was on a Sunday when no one could come to the tutorial.  I went with a guide down to the Rift Valley beyond Debre Zeit.  We didn't go down into the Rift Valley itself, but to the edge of it, where there were hot springs feeding a swimming pool.  It was the only time was in Ethiopia I actually saw baboons -- though a rather unromantically they were picking their way around a rubbish dump.  It was also the only time that I saw monkeys.  Apart from these, the only the local fauna I saw were birds, in particular the big eagles which used to soar over Addis so that I could watch them out of my office window.

On the way back, stopping in Debre Zeit to look at the volcanic lakes there, my guide took me back to his house and I had tea with him and his wife.  They had a chat bush in the back garden and -- for the only time in my life -- I tried a narcotic.  The leaves look like privet, and they tasted like that. I chewed at it, but it didn't really seem to do anything for me.  On the other hand Ethiopians, and others in the Middle East, used large quantities of it; since their religion forbade the taking of any other stimulants - even coffee.  In the south of Ethiopia they harvested it by the bush and flew it very rapidly to Saudi Arabia.  It soon goes off, so the logistics are very important.  At one stage there were big battles in the south which were driven by the money being made out of chat; and which the government was trying to obtain for itself. Eventually, they licensed a number of dealers. These then fought the battles with the illegal harvesters, and soon put paid to them. As I have said, the Ethiopian government was nothing if not pragmatic.

The guide on this trip was also one of the Amhara who had been involved with the Derg, and knew the leaders of the Derg quite well. I was able, therefore, to discuss what had happened to the Derg -- and how he felt about the new government (which of course he hated) -- with