Ethiopia: Bob, Band Aid and how the rebels bought their arms
Peter Horrocks
An edition of the BBC World Service programme Assignment, alleging that money intended for famine relief in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s was used to buy weapons, has prompted an angry response from aid campaigners.
Andrew Whitehead, Editor, News and Current Affairs at the BBC World Service, explains how the story came about.
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By Andrew Whitehead
A quarter of a century ago, the BBC’s Michael Buerk achieved something very rare – he not only reported the world, but changed it a little bit.
His vivid on-the-spot coverage of a famine “of biblical proportions” in Tigray in northern Ethiopia pricked the conscience of the richer part of the world.
The money came pouring in. Bob Geldof’s Band Aid and Live Aid led the way in galvanising public attention, raising cash and mobilising a huge relief effort.
As a result, many thousands of lives were saved – and tens of thousands of those facing starvation received food.
In the past week, the BBC World Service has broadcast an Assignment documentary you can listen to it here – based on the testimony of key figures on the ground in and around Tigray in the mid-1980s.
It presents evidence, compelling evidence, that some of the famine relief donations were diverted by a powerful rebel group to buy weapons.
The documentary has revealed some uncomfortable facts and provoked a strong response. This morning a British newspaper, The Independent, gives over its front-page to complaints from Sir Bob Geldof and several leading charities. They accuse the BBC of “disgracefully poor reporting”.
The suggestion of aid money being to diverted to buy arms is “palpable nonsense”, in the words of Phil Bloomer, director of Oxfam’s campaigns and policy division.
Sir Bob goes further. “This is a Ross/Brand moment in BBC standards for me”, he told The Independent. “It is a disgrace”.
Ok, so let’s stand back a moment. This documentary was put together by Martin Plaut, Africa Editor at BBC World Service News.
He has a particular expertise in the Horn of Africa, and indeed reported from there on the famine back in the 1980s. He has spent almost a year gathering material and doing research for this documentary – and the BBC stands by his journalism.
As so often is the case, the famine that afflicted northern Ethiopia was compounded by war. Much of Tigray was controlled by a hard left-wing rebel group, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. They were fighting the Ethiopian army, then the largest in Africa.
This was also the era of the cold war – and the Americans were seeking to undermine the Soviet-aligned Ethiopian government.
It is not in dispute that millions of dollars of relief aid was channelled through the Relief Society of Tigray (Rest), which was a part of the TPLF rebel movement. It was the only way of reaching those in desperate need in rebel-held areas. What Martin Plaut’s documentary uncovers is the systematic diversion of aid received by Rest to buy arms for the TPLF.
Martin tracked down two key former members of the TPLF who explained how they managed to divert the money.
They are now at odds with the then TPLF leader, Meles Zenawi, who is currently Ethiopia’s Prime Minister. But they are credible voices.
One of these former TPLF fighters, the rebel army commander at the time, makes an allegation which has attracted particular controversy – that the organisation made a policy decision that only 5% of the money received by Rest would be spent on relief, with the bulk going directly or indirectly to support their military and political campaigns.
Among the other accounts featured in the World Service programme, Robert Houdek, who was the senior US diplomat in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, states that TPLF members told him at the time that some aid money and supplies was used to buy weapons. A CIA document paints the same picture.
Sir Bob Geldof was given every opportunity to express his point of view while the documentary was being made, but declined to be interviewed.
Some relief agencies – including Christian Aid and Cafod – pointed us towards their staff involved in directing food supplies 25 years ago, and those voices were included.
Two key aid workers active in and around Ethiopia in the 1980s confirm in the BBC World Service programme the way in which relief was channelled through Rest – though they dispute that there was a significant diversion of money for arms buying.
“If we were being conned, I think it was on a very small scale,” said Stephen King, then overseeing from Sudan the work of Catholic charities in providing food to the starving.
The documentary did not say that most famine relief money was used to buy weapons – it did not suggest that any relief agencies were complicit in the diversion of funds – it explicitly stated that “whatever the levels of deception, much aid did reach the starving”.
But there is a clear public interest in determining whether some money given as famine relief ended up buying guns and bullets.
And that’s what the evidence suggests.
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Geldof is using his celebrity status to save his dictator friends in Ethiopia.
Ethiopians who knows the nature of the ruling party in Ethiopia wasn’t surprised by the news at all what surprised them was how comes the western medias start talking? and Bob Geldof acting like the Ethiopian dictators lire cadres.
What I do not understand is why this is a news for the WEST. TPLF and EPRDF has been looting money and using aid money for a political agenda for the past 20 years and it is still doing that today.
I would ask Geldof? How come TPLF was able to get an incredible amount of weapons at the time of the famine? Either someone donated it to them or a donation of some form was transformed int weapons!! it is a simple math Geldof.
TPLF is full of Thuggery!! Look at the policies the [crime] minster approved in the past two years. Count the many fellow ethiopians who died in the past year, just because of ethnic and political differences. People now, in ethiopia, are more aware of their ethnic background than any time in the history of ethiopia. Do you know how much people from the Tigray region are hated!! and Do you know why Geldof?
I for one, at the age of 12 travelled from addis to wello and mekelle area where the famine was the strongest and I have witnessed that much of the food aid didn’t make it and that a lot of people have died while the world gave millions.
I would suggest to Geldof, to go and see how you were fooled by the TPLF Thugs and I would also look at what the same Thugs are doing today as they are practicing the same Thuggery even today!!
Geldof check your story before you open your mouth one bit!!
What I do not understand is why this is a news for the WEST. TPLF and EPRDF has been looting money and using aid money for a political agenda for the past 20 years and it is still doing that today.
I would ask Geldof? How come TPLF was able to get an incredible amount of weapons at the time of the famine? Either someone donated it to them or a donation of some form was transformed int weapons!! it is a simple math Geldof.
TPLF is full of Thuggery!! Look at the policies the [crime] minster approved in the past two years. Count the many fellow ethiopians who died in the past year, just because of ethnic and political differences. People now, in ethiopia, are more aware of their ethnic background than any time in the history of ethiopia. Do you know how much people from the Tigray region are hated!! and Do you know why Geldof?
I for one, at the age of 12 travelled from addis to wello and mekelle area where the famine was the strongest and I have witnessed that much of the food aid didn’t make it and that a lot of people have died while the world gave millions.
I would suggest to Geldof, to go and see how you were fooled by the TPLF Thugs and I would also look at what the same Thugs are doing today as they are practicing the same Thuggery even today!!
Geldof check your story before you open your mouth one bit!!
@SAM
why are you afraid to attack the real criminals,the masters of woyanes and that a**hole geldof ?
Ayhiyawin ferto dawilawin malet yihe new.
TPLFs are thugs but their western backers like USA,UK and CIA are even worse,so have the courage to attack them too.
And do not paint them as humanitarians because they are not.
They are criminals.
If they did not come to our country and started all those ethnic conflicts we would not be today in the humiliating position of needing their help. Our country is blessed and our people are hard working and ambitious.
We were emulating Japan back in the 1930ies and would have become an industrial giant in Africa by now and had also transformed other African countries as Japan did to Asia if those western countries did not sabotage us.
Part of the corrupt money might be in the private bank accounts of TPLF agents. Part of the RST money was used to create EFFORT the congolomorate that controls TPLF’s companies in Ethiopia. EFFORT is lead by Abadi Zemo (old RST person) and Azeb Golan, Meles’s wife. Thus the aid money was not only used to buy guns to kill other Ethiopians, make the country land locked, and impose minority regime. Perhaps TPLF’s business empires and its fat cats got the seed capital from Sir Geldof’s genuine charity work. In short they have successfully engaged in the laudering of money. No surprise that Ethiopia has just been named as one of the money laudering countries. The other implication is the tax payers in the UK and USA have been defrauded. We need international investigation into the manner. This must include the investigation of individuals and the freezing of the bank accounts of people like Berhane Gebre Kiristos, Meles’s Ambassador in Brussles.
Sir Bob Geldhof
With all due respect and thank for your trial to feed Ethiopian
starving was very respectful and kind but denaying the reallity
is not worth while the cold war is long gone and does not help
the Ethiopian peoples who are now suffering under the tyranny
for the last 18+ years with one man rule who was cheating you
in this case denaying the reallity helps him and only him
In his recent interview with VOA (Amharic Service) Sbhat Nega was bragging about TPLF’s business impire before and after the occupation of Ethiopia. Now, it is time to explain where the start up money come from?
Dears Sir Bob, Christian Aid etc,
If Martin and others disclose the truth 25 or so years later, it still remains to be truth? People like Martin are telling you that you have been cheated by the TPLF at that time, they know very the story. Your generousity hasn’t saved that many people one could have wished. The reason? The TPLF guys have snatched the money from you and diverted it to buying weapons.
This was on the news of the Ethiopian media at that time repeatedly. But just because it was what is called the socialist government, no body in the West paid attention to the concerns expressed by those at the time.
This story has resurfaced again a while ago on the Ethiopian Diaspora media (the Ethiopian Review, printed version), but still was ignored by many. Now it is Martin’s turn to dig it out. Sir Bob, Christian Aid etc are angry? Why? Because they are worried not to losing public trust! In fact, this implies that truth must be hidden from the public the fact that charities won’t get any money any more. This is what is called absurdity of the guys on top of these charities, including Sir Bob.
Der Bob, as you have access to the TPLF “good office”, please go and ask Meles where the money to launch EFORT, REST etc has come from! May be they won’t tell you the truth, but at lease will be ashamed of their shambles if they can regain their humanity.
Dear Bob, don’t blame the BBC and Martin! Truth is on their side! We thank you for saving life, even had it been one person, but most of the money raised then went for buying ARMS for the TPLF to fight the Derg government. Sleep in rest!!
Hi
I am not surprised by Bob trying to defend TPLF the mafia, because he did not know them he was only interested to save millions of lives in Tigray. But What I may question Bob Geldof is, he ones visited Addis under Mengistu’s rule and met the top officials of Mengistu,and why did Bob Geldof go to Sudan and gave the millions dollar to REST/TPLF? Has he been a spy in the name of Band Aid?
Bob did not know well Meles(Legesse)Zenawi.MELES can sell his own mother if she worth millions of dollars.He is the determineD devil to destroy Ethiopia and build great Tigray separating from Ethiopia.Now Isayas of Eritrea is his head ache to accomplish his programe of seprating Tigray. Thanks to Isayias Afewrki of Eritrea.
More to come , and bye for now
Many of the commentators here seem to suffer from some kind of mental slavery,they do not have the courage to mention the words CIA,USA and UK,the main players behind all these.
Also one can register a lot of Uncle Tomism and this ferenji amlaku behaviour not characteristic of Ethiopians.But this is sure a result of their long stay (more than 5 years)in the west.
Sir Bob Geldof,
Our love and apreciation for you remains the same . We love you ,We value your donation for ever. We respect you. You have showen your un limited kindness for human beings. Keeping all these in mind, please try to find out what our mafia grup have done on donated money.As we Ethiopians have seen this mafia grup for about 20 years,it is very clear and believeable what is said by BBC.It is not only asumption but also proved by evidences. So, please listen to the people of Ethiopia , search for the truth,then stand with the people of Ethiopia.
With respect and tru love.
Ganchuma
Cowards,
you should know that most of the people who worship that a**hole
here are woyane cadres.
And they have a reason for that,it is the money he collected in the name of starving Tigreans that helped TPLF to arm itself and capture Menilik palace.
It is only sad that hundreds of thousands of Tigreans starved to death unnecessarily because CIA and woyane thugs started a senseless “liberation war” against Ethiopia.
Now we know that the woyane thugs “liberated” hundreds of thousands of Tigreans from their lives and they liberated themselves from a life in misery because although the situation of Tigreans today is not better than in the past the woyane TPLF elites have now become millionaires