Ethiopia Says U.K. Review of Aid Is Based on Fabricated Claims

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A British court’s decision to allow a judicial review of aid given to Ethiopia is based on “fabrications” about a resettlement program propagated by people outside the country, the Horn of Africa nation’s Foreign Ministry said.

The High Court in London on July 14 said a review could be conducted into whether the U.K.’s aid agency is adequately monitoring the human-rights record of Ethiopia’s government. The ruling came after an Ethiopian citizen said his government had used aid to implement a resettlement program in the western Gambella region under which he suffered abuses. The program forcibly moved tens of thousands of people and involved “serious human rights violations,” according to Human Rights Watch. The U.K.’s development agency said it didn’t fund the program.

Ethiopia is enacting a five-year economic growth plan in a bid to reduce poverty and develop industries beyond agriculture, which accounts for 80 percent of employment, according to the United Nations.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry said the Gambella resettlements were voluntary and successfully achieved their goal of improving public services in sparsely populated areas.

“One reason for these distorted views clearly lies in the failure to understand the objectives of the resettlement program,” it said in a statement e-mailed by Ethiopia’s Embassy in the U.K. yesterday. “This has been further compounded by what can only be described as shoddy analysis of the programs on the basis of flimsy, politically motivated or even non-existent evidence.”