World Bank-ruptcy in Ethiopia

 The moral bankruptcy of the World Bank in Ethiopia

Ethiopians have been the object of a cruel bureaucratic joke by the World Bank. Last week, an official investigative report surfaced on line showing World Bank bureaucrats in Ethiopia have been playing  “Deception Games” of displacement, deracination, forced resettlement and a kinder and gentler form of ethnic cleansing  in the Gambella region of Western Ethiopia. Tens of thousands of Anuaks in Gambella have been removed illegally and in violation of policy from their ancestral homelands and left high and dry and twisting in the wind, courtesy and cash of the World Bank!

For years, the fat cat World Bank bureaucrats and their ilk in Ethiopia have categorically denied allegations of any links  between the so-called “Protection of Basic Services Project” (PBS) and the “villagization” program undertaken by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (T-TPLF). (The term “villagization” is a euphemism for “civilization” of the Anuak to live in modern villages by abandoning their “primitive” lifestyles.)  The Bank has consistently deflected criticism by claiming that it “had not encountered any evidence of human rights abuses” in its PBS programs in Gambella.

Stonewalling, sandbagging, mendacity and duplicity have been the preferred strategies of the World Bank, the International Monetary FUND, the U.K’s Development for International Development and the so-called Development Assistance Group in Ethiopia  (comprising of  27 bilateral and multilateral development agencies providing assistance to Ethiopia) when it comes to accountability for their complicity in crimes against humanity in Ethiopia. Sir Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the UK parliament's international development committee, had the audacity to declare in March 2013 that “allegations against villagisation are unsubstantiated” and that “UK programme is delivering a very good result.”

To paraphrase Abe Lincoln’s saying, “The World Bank and the gang of poverty pimps known as the “Development Assistance Group” (DAG) can fool all Ethiopians some of the time, and some Ethiopians all the time, but they can’t fool all Ethiopians all the time.” But there is no denying that because of the Deception Games played by these leeches, “Ethiopians have been had! They been took! They been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!”, to paraphrase Malcom X. Ethiopianshave been cruelly punked and pranked by the mighty, mighty World Bank.

So spoke the “Inspection Panel” (IP), the World Bank’s independent accountability mechanism. The IP, of course, said it in the sanitized, detached and impersonal language of  “bureaucratise”.  They would never use the impassioned and fiery language of an outraged human rights advocate who is so perplexed in the extreme that he must speak out and loudly in the only language he knows, Moral Outrage. “Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,/ Till we can clear these ambiguities…”, wrote Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet.  I need not seal up my outrage because the World Bank’s own Inspection Panel has cleared all of the ambiguities for me!

In September 2012, two dozen or so Ethiopian refugees from the Gambella Region of Western Ethiopia requested an investigation by the World Bank alleging that they had been forced off their land, “villagized”  and their ancestral lands handed over to land grabbers (investors). In a letter dated September 24, 2012, the unnamed Anuak refugees alleged that they have been severely harmed by the World Bank-financed “Ethiopia Protection of Basic Services Project (PBS)” which directly supported the “Ethiopian Government’s Villagization Program in Gambella Region.” Specifically,

1)  “Through the PBS program, the Anuak Indigenous People are being forcibly transferred from their fertile ancestral land, which is then being leased to investors.” 

 2) “The Anuak have been relocated to infertile land, which is unsuitable for farming, and forced to build new villages there.” 

 3) “Mass evictions have been carried out under the pretext of providing better services and improving the livelihoods of the communities. However, once they moved to the new sites, they found not only unfertile land, but also no schools, clinics, wells or other basic services.” 

 4) “[The Anuak] were forced to abandon their crops just before harvest and were not given any food assistance from the government during the move, which left many relocated families facing hunger. Some vulnerable people and children died from starvation as a result of the Villagization program.”

5)  “Government workers in the woredas, whose salaries are paid by the PBS project, have been forced to implement this program.

6)   “Those farmers who opposed the relocation, and government workers who refused to implement the program, including the Requesters and/or their relatives, have been targeted with arrest, beating, torture and killing. 

 7)  “The Requesters believe that these harms have resulted from World Bank non-compliance with its operational policies and procedures.” 

In 2012, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a 115-page report entitled, “ ‘WAITING HERE FOR DEATH’: Displacement and ‘Villagization’ in Ethiopia’s  Gambella Region”. That Report supported and vastly expanded on the Anuak allegations and documented acts and omissions of the various members of the Development Assistance Group in Ethiopia in the “villagization” fiasco. The HRW report concluded:     

The Ethiopian government is forcibly moving tens of thousands of indigenous people in the western Gambella region from their homes to new villages under its villagization” program. These population transfers are being carried out with no meaningful consultation and no compensation. Despite government promises to provide basic resources and infrastructure, the new villages have inadequate food, agricultural support, and health and education facilities. Relocations have been marked by threats and assaults, and arbitrary arrest for those who resist the move. The state security forces enforcing the population transfers have been implicated in at least 20 rapes in the past year. Fear and intimidation are widespread among affected populations.  

The Truth about the World Bank’s crimes against humanity in Ethiopia

The World Bank’s Inspection Panel undertook an investigation of the Anuak complaint and submitted its “OFFICIAL USE ONLY” report dated November 21, 2014, to the World Bank President, Executive Directors, Department Heads and others. The limited circulation “Investigative Report” mysteriously surfaced online for the whole world to find out the scope of dereliction of duty and depravity of the World Bank managers in Ethiopia and their bosses elsewhere.

The IP Report entitled  “Ethiopia: Promoting Basic Services Phase III Project (P128891)” enumerated findings that are absolutely shocking to the conscience. Using boldface print to underscore the gravity of its findings, the IP stated [I have used Roman numerals to identify specific findings and related particularized commentary below): 

[Note to the reader: I ask my readers to try and read the following findings as stated in the IP's Report. It is likely that most readers will find the bureaucratic language confusing and hard to understand. I offer an “English translation” immediately following the official statement of findings.] 

[I] … [T]he Panel finds that Management did not carry out the required full risk analysis, nor were its mitigation measures adequate to manage the concurrent roll-out of the villagization program in four PBS III regions. The Panel finds that Management’s approach did not meet the standards of a systematic or holistic assessment of risks, as called for in the Operational Risk Assessment Framework (ORAF) Guidance, which is aimed among other objectives at identifying adequate risk management measures for affected communities. The Panel finds these omissions in non-compliance with OMS 2.20 on Project Appraisal. 

[II] … It is the view of the Panel that the lack of recognition and analysis during appraisal of the operational interface between PBS III and CDP as required by the ORAF and described above, meant that the resulting risks were not adequately taken into account, neither were they properly managed and mitigated during PBS III implementation. 

[III] … The Panel finds that, barring the triggering of OP 4.10, Management should have adopted the “functional equivalence” approach in the design of PBS III… The Panel notes that livelihoods, well-being and access to basic services, which are closely tied to the Anuak’s access to land and natural resources was not taken into account in the design of PBS III, in non-compliance with OP 4.10. 

[IV] … The Panel finds that, in accordance with Bank Policies, the operational interface between CDP and PBS should have been taken into account at the PBS project level, both during the appraisal and implementation phases, especially in a region such as Gambella  where 60% of households, which are also PBS beneficiaries, were resettled as part of the Government’s CDP. The Panel finds that Management’s approach has not enabled PBS to mitigate or manage the harms described in the Request for Inspection with respect to access and quality of basic services in the agricultural sector and livelihoods of affected people in Gambella. 

[V]… Since PBS III began implementation, three “Joint Review and Implementation Support” (JRIS) missions were undertaken, but the resulting reports are silent on the issues noted above. The Panel finds that this is not consistent with the supervision provisions of the Investment Lending Policy (OP/BP 10.00). 

[VI]… The Panel finds that Management did not comply with the requirements of OMS 2.20 and OP/BP 10.02 in the design and appraisal of PBS III. The Panel notes that the Bank’s assertion that the funds can be tracked at the woreda level cannot be sustained. 

[VII] … The Panel finds that, since PDO results indicators that directly address fiduciary risks were inadequate in the initial planning, and subsequently have not been adjusted, the supervision of those risks is not in compliance with Bank policy OP/BP 10.00. 

Translation of the Inspection Panel’s Report in simple English 

The language of bureaucrats is “bureaucratese” or “officialese”.  It is a special language filled with abstractions, jargon, buzzwords, fuzzwords, doublespeak, euphemisms, circumlocutions, obfuscations and acronyms. “Bureaucratese” is about vagueness, not clarity or directness. Bureaucratic reports are often stilted, convoluted, and often indecipherable. 

Simply stated, the accomplished practitioner of “bureaucratese” would never call a spade a spade. S/he would describe a spade as an implement with a sharp-edged, typically rectangular, metal blade riveted or pressure fitted into an elongated wooden or hardened plastic handle and used for, among other things, spreading manure; incidentally, an activity most bureaucrats are expert at doing. 

[Some may find the IP’s Report and its findings a prime example of “bureaucratese”.  Below is my “Englishtranslation” of the bureaucratese in the Inspection Panel’s findings. Reference is made to the findings of the Inspection Panel’s findings above per Roman numerals.] 

[I]. The World Bank management in Ethiopia and the overseerselsewhere implemented   the  PBS program with a devil-may-care attitude.  The managers in Ethiopia were basically engaged in window dressing. They were going through the motions of implementing the program and putting on a show. The Bank’s managers did not give a rat’s ass about the effects or impact of the villagization program on the people of Gambella. They did not even look at their official policies and guidelines in assessing the risk of harmful impact on the Anuak people purportedly served by the PBS. By undertaking “concurrent rollout of the villagization program in four regions”, the mangers bit more than they can chew. By failing to comply withrequired Bank policies set forth in OMS 2.20 on Project Appraisal, the managers were one or more of the following: incompetent, lazy-ass, indifferent, reckless, callous, uncaring, unconcerned and morally and professionally depraved. They should get the boot right in their fat behinds!

[II]. The World Bank in-country program managers’ cluelessness about their responsibilities, their depraved indifference and lack of professional integrity is principally responsible for ignoring known and reasonably articulable and predictable risks of harm to the Anuak  communities impacted by the PBS program. Once the harm became manifest and the Bank’s managers knew they had really screwed up things badly, they could not manage their mistakes or take corrective action because they were clueless about what they needed to do. So, they sat around twiddling their thumbs hoping no one will find out the big mess they made or expose their dereliction of duty, laughable ineptitude, indolence, lethargy and shiftlessness. 

[III]. Even though the World Bank managers were clueless or willfully ignorant of the Bank’s OP 4.10 [which sets guidelines and policies to ensure the Bank’s programs’ fully respect the dignity, human rights, economies, and cultures], they could have still taken corrective action to improve the situation and minimize the harm on the Anuak communities by adopting a “functional equivalence” approach [which requires the managers to consult and seek broad community support from communities potentially impacted by the program, facilitating  culturally appropriate benefit sharing, processes for complaints and dispute resolution and generally making sure indigenous peoples do not get the shaft.] Because of the failure of the Bank’s managers to follow standard policies or parallel guidelines of the Bank, the Anuak people of Gambella suffered harm which, among other things,  deprived them of their rightful access to their ancestral lands and vital natural resources and inflicted upon them needless suffering. 

[IV].  The World Bank managers in Ethiopia cannot chew gum and walk at the same time. Their right hand does not know what their left hand is doing. The World Bank’s Community Development Project seeks to provide sustainable ways of improving the living conditions and the economic status of disadvantaged communities by focusing on social and infrastructure development and improve access to basic education, health, and social services. PBS III in Gambella seeks to “strengthen the capacity, transparency, accountability and financial management of sub-national governments to provide such basic services as education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation and rural roads. Because the Bank’s mangers were sitting on their duffs and not doing their job of monitoring and coordinating the two programs, the people of  Gambella were harmed in the ways the Anuak complainants alleged. Simply stated, as a result of the Bank managers’ dereliction of duty, the Anuak people were relocated to infertile land, forced to build new villages without schools, clinics, wells or other basic services. Most importantly, “Some vulnerable Anuak people and children died from starvation as a result of the Villagization program.” Others who opposed the forced relocation of the Anuak under the World Bank program “have been targeted with arrest, beating, torture and killing.” It seems like Pompei burning and Nero fiddling, except it is Gambella and the World Bank. 

There is blood on the hands of the World Bank managers in Ethiopia!

 [V]. There is a conspiracy of silence to cover up the crimes against humanity committed against the Anuak people in Ethiopia with the complicity of the World Bank itself. The “main objective of the [JRIS] Mission is to review implementation progress on all components of the project and provide implementation support.” The World Bank gave $600 million for PBS III in September 2012. Three JRIS reviews were done since PBS III was implemented and all three “are silent on the issues” of harm to the Anuak people. The World Bank’s “Investment Lending Policy (OP/BP 10.00)” provides detailed and elaborate policies, procedures and instructions with “particular attention to reviewing the monitoring by the Borrower or Project Participant(s) of the performance of the Project and compliance with contractual undertakings.”  The World Bank managers were asleep at the switch in their duties or willfully ignorant of the blatant and flagrant violations of the Bank’s policies with respect to investment lending and monitoring.

[VI]. The World Bank managers in Ethiopia lied through their teeth, told tall tales when they said the Bank’s money could be tracked at the woreda level.  The World Bank’s OMS 2.20 requires the Bank, among other things, to ensure that financed activities are consistent with a borrower’s international agreements regarding its environment and the health and well-being of its citizens.” OP/BP 10.02 requires the Bank “during project implementation, [to have its] financial management staff review the continuing adequacy of the financial management arrangements.”

The Bank’s managers in Ethiopia were clueless of or willfully indifferent to these important responsibilities. The “Woredas” constitute the third level (after regions and zones) in the country’s “decentralized administrative structure”. The “Woredas” are a well-known den of corruption. It is the “Woreda Councils” that delivered a 99.6 percent electoral victory to the T-TPLF in 2010. Yet, the World Bank managers in Ethiopia have opted to abdicate their own duties and professionalism and blindly rely on the integrity and financial skills of benighted Woreda officials to fulfill their own fiduciary responsibilities. (What were they thinking? Strike that question!)

[VII]. [This finding is the most interesting and astounding one from the standpoint of financial accountability.]  The World Bank’s managers in Ethiopia made no effort to protect the Bank’s money from corruption. That is what the phrase “inadequate initial planning to address fiduciary risks” means. The World Bank has policies (OP/BP 10.00) and analytical tools (Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA)) to safeguard against corruption in recipient states. Even though these policies and tools do not comprehensively address corruption risks, it is generally considered that planning, monitoring and conducting such assessments has a positive impact on the recipient countries. The World Bank mangers in Ethiopia dropped the ball big time on safeguarding against “fiduciary risks” (corruption) in PBS III!

I am no stranger to the machinations of the World Bank and the Unholy Alliance of International Poverty Pimps known as the Under- “Development Assistance Group.” I have studied their reports and scrutinized their policies, operational guidelines, manuals, public statements and other publications for quite some time now. I can say I have some general  familiarity with their policies, practices and activities in Ethiopia. 

I imagine I am probably the only person (other than the authors) who has read and re-read multiple times the World Bank’s  417-page report “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”. In fact, I have read that report so many times that I am  embarrassed to admit the actual number in public.  I used that report to write so many commentaries on corruption in various sectors of the Ethiopian economy and to criticize the Empire of Corruption of the T-TPLF.

I will admit that corruption report was a breath of fresh air. I have not seen a World Bank report of corruption of such breadth and depth on any other country. If one exists, I would like to know. I was inspired and even grateful to the World Bank for doing right by the people of Ethiopia for a change and telling the truth about the Empire of Corruption built and maintained by the T-TPLF. I really believed “Diagnosing Corruption” heralded a new era of transparency and accountability at the World Bank.

I am not accusing all World Bank employees in Ethiopia or others elsewhere who oversee the Bank’s Programs in that country. There are some genuine World Bank professionals who tell the truth about Ethiopia come hell or high water. Wolfgang Fengler, a lead economist for the World Bank, is one such individual.  In 2011 when the late Meles Zenawi was trying to deny occurrences of famine and food shortages in the country, Fengler called him out. Fengler said, “The [famine] crisis [in the Horn] is man made. Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policy making for that to lead to a famine.” In other words, it is bad governance that is at the core of the famine problem in Ethiopia, not drought. That was a rare and refreshing departure from the all-too-common bureaucratic mumbo jumbo about the causes of famine often spouted by international aid agencies and multilateral organizations.

Then there are tall tale tellers like Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia.   In December 2012, Chen said, “Two and a half million people in Ethiopia have been lifted out of poverty over the past five years as a result of strong economic growth, bringing the poverty rate down from 38.7 percent to 29.6 percent between 2004/05 and 2010/11 ... The Government target to reduce poverty to 22.2 percent by 2014/15 is ambitious but attainable.”

It is 2015 now! Is poverty reduced by 22.2 percent in Ethiopia!?  

I get it! I really do. The World Bank guys have to make the T-TPLF look good to make themselves look good. If they tell the truth about the T-TPLF, they will also be tattletaling on themselves. They don’t want to be snitches so they have (un)willingly become part of a conspiracy of silence to protect the T-TPLF.  Instead of telling the truth about the T-TPLF’s corruption, mismanagement of the economy and crimes against humanity in Gambella, they tell tall tales and fairy tales about preposterous and fictional economic growth in Ethiopia.

In its December  2012 report, the World Bank claimed, “Over the past decade, the Ethiopian economy has been growing at twice the rate of the Africa region, averaging, 10.6 percent GDP growth per year between 2004 and 2011 compared to 5.2 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa,  according to a new report by the World Bank.”

Of course, the World Bank knows that is a crock of _ _ _ T! I have shown beyond any doubt that the stratospheric claims of GDP growth and the rest of the claims were based on figures cooked up in Meles Zenawi’s Statistics Office and quietly slipped to the World Bank, the IMF and others to parrot to the rest of the world and ultimately show Meles to be the Second Coming.  I challenge the World Bank or anyone to disprove my analysis in my commentary “The Voodoo Economics of Meles Zenawi”.

Dambissa Moyo, author of Dead Aid said,  “… World Bank research has shown that 85 percent of development aid was used for other than the intended purpose. Donor countries are propping up the most corrupt regimes. From 1980 until 1996, 72 percent of World Bank aid went to countries that did not abide by the rules. The need for donor countries to just keep on giving appears to be insatiable.”

The November 2014 Inspection Panel’s Report on Ethiopia discussed herein provides fresh and incontrovertible evidence in support of Moyo’s claim. How little things have changed over three decades?!

The World Bank’s hypocrisy in Ethiopia

The World Bank proclaims its mission is to “strive to end extreme poverty at the global level within a generation” and promote “shared prosperity”. The  Bank purportedly seeks to accomplish this mission in Ethiopia through its “Ethiopia Protection of Basic Services Project (BPS).”  According to the World Bank, the BPS in Ethiopia has four components: 1) “maintain delivery of basic services provided by regional and local governments”, 2) “provide predictable financing for critical inputs for the primary health service delivery subprogram”; 3) “supports activities at the Regional and city Administration, Woreda and sub- Woreda levels to significantly enhance transparency around public budget procedures and foster broad engagement and citizen representation on public budget processes and public service delivery”; and 4) promote “capacity building for and piloting of selected approaches to strengthen the voice of citizens and civil society organizations and also builds the capacity of citizens to engage in public budgeting processes. The World Bank has been supporting  its PBS program in Ethiopia since May 2006 with a commitment of more than $2bn. In the last two years, the Bank has spent a cool USD$600 million.

The truth of the matter is that the World Bank’s managers have failed miserably in their mission. They have failed to “carry out the required full risk analysis to manage the concurrent roll-out of the villagization program in four PBS III regions.”  They have failed to follow or comply with the Bank’s operational policies and guidelines. They have failed to interact or consult with the Anuak communities adversely impacted by the Banks’ programs.  They are clueless about the “operational interface between PBS III and CDP as required by the Operational Risk Assessment Framework (ORAF).” They do not give a rat’s behind about “livelihoods, well-being and access to basic services, which are closely tied to the Anuak’s access to land and natural resources.” In their  “Joint Review and Implementation Support” (JRIS) reports, they sugarcoat, finesse and massage facts or outright bury unfavorable facts to avoid transparency and evade accountability. They don’t do much planning, monitoring or supervision of the Bank’s program. They have abdicated their professional duties and obligations and transferred their fiduciary duties to corrupt woreda officials to ensure hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent properly. I am just curious: What do the World Bank managers in Ethiopia do all day, anyway?

For crying out loud, what kind of a mickey mouse operation is the World Bank running in Ethiopia? 

In December 2013, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim declared, “In the developing world, corruption is public enemy number one…  We will never tolerate corruption, and I pledge to do all in our power to build upon our strong fight against it…  Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care; or from a girl or a boy who deserves an education; or from communities that need water, roads, and schools. Every dollar is critical if we are to reach our goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity.”

I wish Kim would visit my Anuak brothers and sisters in Gambella in 2015 and tell them how many schools, hospitals, clinics, roads and water wells his Bank's USD$600 million has provided the people of Gambella. 

For crying out loud, could someone tell me if there anyone minding the World Bank store in Addis Ababa?

(To be continued…)

   source Al Mariam

posted By Daneil Aleyu zeleke

Ethiopia: human rights groups criticise UK-funded development programme

By Harry Davies and James Ball, Guardian
January 19, 2015

---

---

Leaked World Bank report rejects claims from the Bank’s management that no link existed between their programme and villagisation

A major UK- and World Bank-funded development programme in Ethiopia may have contributed to the violent resettlement of a minority ethnic group, a leaked report reveals.
The UK’s Department for International Development was the primary funder of a World Bank-run development project aimed at improving health, education and public services in Ethiopia, contributing more than £388m of UK taxpayer funds to the project.
However, a scathing draft report of the World Bank’s internal watchdog said that due to inadequate oversight, bad audit practices, and a failure to follow its own rules, the Bank has allowed operational links to form between its programme and the Ethiopian government’s controversial resettlement programme.
Multiple human rights groups operating in the region have criticised the Ethiopian government’s programme for violently driving tens of thousands of indigenous people, predominantly from the minority Anuak Christian ethnic group, from their homes in order to make way for commercial agriculture projects – allegations the Ethiopian government denies.
Many of those resettled remain in poor conditions lacking even basic facilities in refugee camps in South Sudan.
The leaked World Bank report, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and seen by the Guardian, rejected claims from the Bank’s management that no link existed between their programme and villagisation.
According to the report, weak audit controls meant bank funds – which included over £300m from the UK’s Department for International Development – could have been diverted to implement villagisation.
The report did not itself examine whether the resettlement programme had involved human rights abuses, saying such questions were outside its remit.
However, the watchdog highlighted a series of failures in the planning and implementation of the programme, including a major oversight in its failure to undertake full risk-assessments as required by bank protocol. Crucially for the Anuak people, the bank did not apply required safeguards to protect indigenous groups.
Anuradha Mittal, the founder of the Oakland Institute, a California-based development NGO which is active in the region, said DfID was an active participant in the programme, and should share responsibility for its failings.
“Along with the World Bank and other donors, DfID support constitutes not only financial support but a nod of approval for the Ethiopian regime to bring about ‘economic development’ for the few at the expense of basic human rights and livelihoods of its economically and politically most marginalised ethnic groups,” she said.
Mittal was also critical of the World Bank panel’s draft findings, falling short of directly implicating the World Bank and its fellow donors in the resettlement programme.
“It is quite stunning that the panel does not think that the World Bank is responsible for villagisation-related widespread abuses in Ethiopia resulting in destruction of livelihoods, forced displacement of Anuaks from their fertile lands and forests.”
Disclosure of the draft report’s findings come as the UK government faces increasing scrutiny over its involvement in villagisation.
DfID is the project’s largest donor and in March ministers will face a judicial review over whether the UK’s contributions indirectly funded the resettlement programme. The case has been brought by a farmer from the Gambela region who claims he was violently evicted from his land.
Responding to the report’s findings, David Pred of Inclusive Development International – the NGO which filed the original complaint on the Anuak group’s behalf – said: “The Bank has enabled the forcible transfer of tens of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands.
“The Bank today just doesn’t want to see human rights violations, much less accept that it bears some responsibility when it finances those violations.”
A World Bank spokesman declined to answer the Guardian’s questions about the report.
“As is standard procedure, World Bank staff cannot comment on the results of the inspection panel’s investigation until the executive board of the World Bank Group has had the opportunity to review the panel’s report over the coming weeks.”
In previous statements the bank’s management said there was no evidence of widespread abuses or evictions.
Asked about the findings, a DfID spokesman said: “We do not comment on leaked reports.





“Britain’s support to the Promotion of Basic Services Programme is specifically for the provision of essential services like healthcare, schooling and clean water, and we have no evidence that UK funds have been diverted for other purposes.”
posted By Daneil zeleke

MLK: “When Will You Be Satisfied?”

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [MLK] GAVE his “I Have a Dream Speech” in August 1963, he asked the “devotees of civil rights” a simple rhetorical question:  “When will you be satisfied?”

One of his ANSWERS was particularly poignant. “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” He empathized with those who have been “battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.”

Dr. King was deeply concerned about the plague of police brutality gratuitously visited upon BLACK MEN throughout the country. He had seen and experienced police brutality firsthand. In the Spring of 1963, he witnessed  Eugene “Bull” Connor, the rabidly racist police commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war” on unarmed citizens demanding the right to vote. Connors unleashed his police officers to viciously and mercilessly attack non-violent anti-segregation protesters with high-pressure fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs and tear gas. But the protesters kept on coming in waves chanting, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”.

A NUMBER of prominent white Southern clergymen expressed disapproval of Dr. King's nonviolent tactics in demanding their constitutional right to vote, but applauded Connor’s brutal methods to “maintain law and order.” In April 1963, Dr. King, in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, challenged the moral ambiguity and absurdity of their position and their skin-deep commitment to racial justice. He exposed their willful ignorance and hypocrisy before the court of public opinion. He argued that those who “warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping ‘order’ and ‘preventing violence’” would have come to a different conclusion had they “seen [the] dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes… observed their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail… watched them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls… slap and kick old Negro men and young boys… observe them refuse to give us food because we WANTED TO sing our grace together.”

In March 1965, during the “Bloody Sunday March (click here for video)”,  Alabama State troopers and a posse of police-recruited Klansmen on horseback savagely brutalized civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as the world watched in horror. Dr. King personally led the second march on “Turnaround Tuesday” with 2500 marchers in tow. Connor’s police withdrew from the bridge to let the marchers CONTINUE and avoid a confrontation. Dr. King held a short prayer session as the police looked on from the sidelines. In a dramatic display of self-control and demonstration of the principles of nonviolent resistance, Dr. King turned back and walked his marchers back to town. Within days, Dr.  King led some 25 thousand marchers and successfully completed the 54-mile march from Selma to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery with the protection of thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army, federalized Alabama National Guardsmen, FBI agents and Federal Marshals. There he delivered a soul-stirring speech: “The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. ... I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long…”

All of the POLICE savagery was visited upon the Selma marchers simply because they demanded their constitutional right to vote guaranteed them under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. President Lyndon B. Johnson later declared, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”

Dr. King understood police brutality was not limited to physical beatings and atrocities. He was acutely aware of the debilitating effects of the psychic brutality of segregation reinforced by ruthless police forces. The police were the sledgehammer and axe in the hands of Jim Crow (the metaphorical name for racial segregation laws enacted in Southern United States after the American Civil War and remained in force until 1965). They were the first line of “defense” against any efforts to desegregate public schools, public places and TRANSPORTATION, restaurants, restrooms and drinking fountains.

Dr. King was acutely aware of the psychic brutality of racism that destroys the very soul of a human being and leaves the body a shell of shame, fear and self-hate. He understood that a physical injury, even a bullet wound, will eventually heal, though the scar will remain as a permanent signature of the crime committed. But the victim of psychic brutality “finds himself suddenly tongue twisted and stammering to explain to [his] six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is CLOSED to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people...”  The victim of psychic brutality has to “concoct an ANSWER for a five year old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’”

Dr. King understood the psychic brutality of being “humiliated day in and day out by nagging SIGNS reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; [having one’s] first name become “nigger,” [one’s] middle name become “boy” (however old you are) and [one’s] last name become “John,” and [one’s] wife and mother never given the respected title “Mrs.” He understood the psychic brutality of racism and what it means to be  “forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness”. That’s why he declared Black people could no longer wait for change because “there comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”

Dr. King understood the psychic injury to the dignity of man and woman will never heal unless given large doses of love (agape). Without love, the psychic brutality of racism, to paraphrase the poetic words of Langston Hughes, will only CONTINUE to “fester like a sore-- / And then run? /… /… it just sags/ like a heavy load… [and in the end]… explode…”

The spark that set off the powder keg of racism came in the PERSON of a frail 42 year-old seamstress named Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955, Parks said she was no longer going suffer the slings and arrows of racist psychic brutality inflicted on her as she boarded the buses. She resolved to stand up to the daily humiliations, degradation and dehumanization of segregated public transportation. If she is going to pay her bus fare at the front of the bus, that’s where she was going to sit. When Parks refused to follow the bus driver’s INSTRUCTION to go to the back of the bus, she stood her ground and would not back down. The POLICE swiftly arrested and jailed her.

“A riot is the LANGUAGE of the unheard.” MLK

Dr. King once told a journalist that “A riot is the language of the unheard.  And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”

That was not all. America had also failed to hear the cries and whimpers of her black children wilting under the blows of police batons. She had turned a blind eye to the lifeless bodies of victims of police brutality in the streets and deaf ears to the bootless cries of YOUNG BLACK MEN begging the mercy of rogue police officers with huge chips on their shoulders.

The most severe “race riots” of 20th Century America were triggered by acts of police brutality. (I am not sure why such unrest is called a “race riot”. It is factually more accurate to call it “riots against police brutality”.)

The July 1964 “Harlem, N.Y. Race Riots” were sparked when a 15-year-old African American teenager was shot and killed by a POLICE lieutenant  in the presence of the teen’s friends and several other witnesses. Thousands of people rioted for nearly a week in the New York City neighborhoods of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant RESULTING in one death, 118 injuries and over 450 arrests along with significant vandalism and looting.

The “Harlem Riots” set off other riots. The Rochester (N.Y) Race Riots” of July 1964 flared when that city’s police attempted to arrest a 19-year-old African American man in the street. Rumors alleging police brutality spread in that city’s African American community resulting in angry reaction. In the ensuing riot, several people were killed, hundreds injured and nearly a thousand protesters arrested along with significant property damage.

The “Philadelphia Race Riots” of August 1964 exploded after prolonged complaints over numerous  allegations of police brutality. In several days of rioting, 341 people were injured, 774 arrested and 225 STORES damaged or destroyed in several days of rioting. Similar riots took place in various cities in New Jersey and Chicago.

The August 1965 “Watts Riots” or “Watts Rebellion” were triggered after two white policemen tussled with a black motorist.  An angry crowd JOINED the fray causing a riot that lasted for nearly a week.  By the end, 34 people were dead, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests and incurring over $40 million in property damage.

The 1967 “Detroit Riot” was sparked when POLICE raided an unlicensed bar and rumors spread that the police had murdered several African American men. That riot lasted for nearly a week and according to Time Magazine became “one of the deadliest and costliest riots in the HISTORY of the United States.” During the “long hot summer” of 1967 some 159 riots erupted across the United States.

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (“Kerner Commission”) was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 riots and to provide recommendations for the future. The Report's most famous passage warned, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The Report pointed an accusatory finger at white racism as one of the major causes of urban violence in America. The Report recommended, among other things, the hiring of more DIVERSE and sensitive police forces.

Police brutality-sparked riots CONTINUED in the late 1960s and 70s in various American cities. 

The Orangeburg Massacre (in Orangeburg, South Carolina) of February 1968 occurred on the campus of South Carolina State University as students tried to desegregate a LOCAL bowling alley. South Carolina Highway Patrol Officers fired into a group of African American students killing three and wounding 27. That was the first time police committed atrocities on an American college campus, over two years before the Kent State University shootings in May 1970.

In the 1970s, riots triggered by police brutality CONTINUEDto occur from Augusta, GA to Jackson, MS. By 1980, another major riot had occurred in Liberty City, a Miami neighborhood after four police officers were acquitted in the death of an African American man. After three days of rioting, 18 people were dead, scores arrested and over $100 million in property damage incurred. 

In April 1992, massive riots erupted in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers of assault charges in the 1991 beating of Rodney King. Fifty-five people died and 2,000 were injured and over 10 thousand people arrested in several days of rioting. Over 1,000 buildings were damaged in the Los Angeles AREA at a cost of over $1 billion.

“POLICE Riots”?

The 1968 Democratic National Convention was as much a battleground as a political convention to nominate a president. A NUMBER of “counterculture groups” coordinated to disrupt that convention. The law-and order mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, unleashed his police on protesters to “maintain law and order”. That led to pitched street battles in the streets for several days.     

The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence appointed Daniel Walker, an Illinois lawyer and politician, to head the Chicago Study Team to investigate and prepare a report on the violence during the Democratic National Convention. The Walker Report (“Rights in Conflict”) made the controversial conclusion that while protesters had deliberately harassed and provoked police, the police had responded with indiscriminate violence against protesters and bystanders. The report accused law enforcement of engaging in a “police riot”. The Report determined many police officers had committed criminal acts, and condemned the official failure to prosecute or even discipline those officers. The Report stated: 

… That [police] violence was made all the more shocking by the fact that it was often inflicted upon PERSONSwho had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat. These included peaceful demonstrators, onlookers, and large numbers of residents who were simply passing through, or happened to live in, the areas where confrontations were occurring.

Newsmen and photographers were SINGLED out for assault, and their equipment deliberately damaged. Fundamental police training was ignored; and officers, when on the scene, were often unable to control their men. As one police officer put it: “What happened didn’t have anything to do with police work.” . . .

As a lawyer, I wonder if some of the incidents we witnessed in the riots sparked by POLICE brutality in 2014 could be fairly classified as “police riots”?  I wonder if Eric Garner had died at the hands of police officers in California (instead of N.Y.), the officers involved in his death would have been prosecuted for “police riot”?  According to California Penal Code section 404 as “Any use of force or violence, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use force or violence, if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by two or more persons acting together, and without authority of law, is a riot.” If those officers had been FOUND in California to have engaged in an unreasonable and unlawful use of deadly force ("without authority of law”) such as employing an illegal chokehold causing a death, could they have been charged for committing a homicide in the course of a “police riot”?

The “quiet riots” of Barack Obama  

In June 2007, presidential hopeful Barack Obama spoke at Hampton University Annual Ministers’ Conference in Hampton, Virginia. He spoke of the “quiet riot” taking place in Los Angeles and in BLACK America:

… A few weeks ago, I attended a service at First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the LA Riots. After a jury acquitted 4 police officers of beating Rodney King-a beating that was filmed and flashed around the world- Los Angeles erupted. I remember the sense of despair and powerlessness in watching one of America’s greatest cities engulfed in flames…

… Many of the folks in this room know just where they were when the riot in Los Angeles STARTED and tragedy struck the corner of Florence and Normandy. And most of the ministers here know that those riots didn't erupt over night; there had been a “quiet riot” building up in Los Angeles and across this COUNTRY for years.

If you had gone to any street corner in Chicago or Baton Rouge or Hampton -- you would have FOUND the same young men and women without hope, without miracles, and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge -- the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities.

On January 20, 2015 when President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech in Congress, I would like to get his take on the “quiet riot” that has been taking place in the BLACKcommunity since he became president. Perahps the “quiet riots” quietly disappeared with the Bush Adminstration.  I don't know.

I would like to know if President Obama had been BACK to street corners in Chicago, Baton Rouge or Hampton lately (I mean in the last six years). If he had, I would like to know if he had seen any of the young men and women he saw in 2007 “without hope, without miracles, and without a sense of destiny” still hangin' and chillin' out there.

After he delivers his speech, I would like to ask President Obama a hypothetical question: What happens to an unrequited “quiet riot”?

“Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? /Or fester like a sore—/ And then RUN? /Does it stink like rotten meat? /Or crust and sugar over-- /like a syrupy sweet?/ Maybe it just sags /like a heavy load./ Or does it explode?”

A nation of two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal in 2015 or just one United States of America?

In his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Senator Barack Obama stole the show by declaring: “Well, I say to them (those who are preparing to divide us) tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.

In 1967, the Kerner Commission warned, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

I ask myself, “What is America to me?”

Is it a LAND ruled by the rule of law or a land of a few misguided men who rule because they believe they are above the law, indeed believe themselves to be the personification of the law because they carry a badge to enforce the law which they mistake as a license to kill and abuse citizens. 

Is not America the land of the brave and HOME of the free? 

The Presbyterian Minister and poet Henry Van Dyke had an ANSWER. “…So it's home AGAIN, and home again, America for me! / My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be, / In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars, / Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!.../ 

Langston Hughes disagreed, “America never was America to me.” Hughes demanded that we “Let America be America Again” for those who feel “America never was America to [them]”. 

In passionate soul-stirring words Langston  Hughes  demanded,“Let America be America again./ Let it be the dream it used to be./Let it be the pioneer on the plain/Seeking a home where he himself is free… / Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--/Let it be that great strong land of love/Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme/That any man be crushed by one above…/ O, let MY LAND be a land where Liberty/ Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,/But OPPORTUNITY is real, and life is free,/Equality is in the air we breathe…/

I join Hughes. Let’s “Let America be America Again” to those who feel “America never was America to [them].”

Can we get satisfaction in 2015?

On the occasion of Dr. King’s 86^th birthday, it is time for us to ask his soul-searching questions once again.  “When will you be satisfied?” When will we be satisfied?

The ANSWER in 2015 must be the same as the answer given in 1963. “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of POLICE brutality.” We can never be satisfied until those “battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality” find a safe harbor, a haven, in the embrace of the Constitution of the United States of America!

In 2014, there were some gusty winds of police brutality. Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white police officer in Ferguson, MO. Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man died in Staten Island, New York, after a police officer put him in a chokehold. Grand juries in both cases refused to charge the police officers. There were numerous other incidents throughout the country publicly reported and unreported alleging police brutality.

The Brown and Garner deaths sparked massive street protests. Famed African American televangelist Bishop T.D. Jakes told worshipers that BLACK MEN should not be “tried on the sidewalk.”

Police Chief Chris Magnus of Richmond, California stood on the sidewalk carrying a SIGN that read “Black Lives Matter” to show his solidarity with those protesting police brutality.

An organization called “Black Life Matters” was launched to coordinate national grassroots action on POLICE brutality. Several St. Louis Rams PLAYERS protested on the filed by displaying the “hands up don't shoot” pose on the field. “I Can't Breathe,” became the rallying cry against police brutality.  

The Rolling Stones sang, “I can't get no satisfaction… Cause you see I’m on losing streak…”

We must reverse the losing streak of 2014 in 2015. As Americans we must rise up, lock arms and stand together to withstand the battering storms of persecution and let the gentle breeze of justice and the rule of law blow in our faces and take up PERMANENT residence in our souls. In 2015, let’s “Let America be America AGAIN” to those who feel “America never was America to [them].”

An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. Dr. King taught us that we must be quick to negotiate and slow to confrontation. In 2015, we must negotiate a long and hazardous road littered with the injustices of police brutality. We must negotiate with and convince our fellow citizens who feel battered, betrayed and persecuted by law enforcement and judicial SYSTEMS that they are fully protected by the American Bill of Rights. We must negotiate to de-escalate tensions between the community and the police, and escalate our creative engagements on issues of the rights of man and woman as human rights.

POLICE and citizens are not mortal enemies. There are some rogue police officers who believe police power comes from the barrel of the gun. They are mistaken. There are some citizens who believe the police are demons. They are mistaken too. The police should know that they are the servants of citizens. Their professional creed and oath is “to serve and to protect”.

Citizens have a civic and moral duty to treat their servants with respect and appreciation, and without scorn. They must appreciate their servants for doing a thankless, difficult and dangerous job every day. 

ALL police officers wear a badge of courage, but the rogue ones also carry huge chips on their shoulders. We should appreciate all police officers for their courage and sacrifices; but we must also insist that they proudly wear their badges of professionalism and integrity at all times.    

The police sometimes use the metaphor of the “Thin Blue Line” to suggest that they are the last line of defense of the citizenry from the criminal elements. In 2015, we need to draw a broad red, white and blue line to protect all Americans from all unlawful official use of force.

Dr. King often dreamt about the “Beloved Community” where poverty, violence, injustice and racism in all its forms will not be tolerated. In his Beloved Community, disputes are resolved by “creating a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably OPEN the door to negotiation”. 

In Dr. King’s “Beloved Community”, negotiation is not about one-upmanship, gamesmanship, showmanship or brinksmanship. It is simply about truth and reconciliation. The negotiators are guided by a SINGLE principle: Focus on the positive in every action and statement the opposition makes.  

In 2015, I hope Americans will have not only a national “conversation on race” but also a negotiation to begin the creation of the Beloved Community of Dr. King’s dream. It must NOT be a negotiation between good and evil. It must be a negotiation between good people to get rid of evil.

I hope it will be a negotiation that will NOT end up demonizing and criminalizing one side or the other but humanizes all sides. I hope the negotiations will produce police ACCOUNTABILITY and citizen civility.  I hope that negotiations will lead to the liberation of people hopelessly trapped in an evil system of hate and dehumanization.

There is one non-negotiable issue. We must insist on theunconditional surrender of an evil system that thrives on man's inhumanity to man and the deprivation of the divinely ordained rights of Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As we celebrate Dr. King’s 86^th birthday in 2015, I can imagine him asking us the following haunting questions: When will you be  dissatisfied with the bloodletting?   Dissatisfied  with your demonization of YOUNG BLACK MEN and the police? Dissatisfied with your finger-pointing, teeth-gnashing, heart-aching and gut-wrenching about evil systems that thrive on man’s inhumanity to man? Your endless soul-searching when the truth is standing in your faces with the tears of the suffering? When will you be dissatisfied with your hypocrisy, cowardice and WINDOW dressing of injustice? When, when will you BEGIN to negotiate?

In 2014, protesters against police brutality adopted the rallying cry, “I (We) can’t breathe.” It is time for all Americans to exhale in 2015. It is time for us to take a long deep breath of the fresh air of justice and righteousness. Because if we can’t breathe together, we will choke separately.  Even at AGE 86, Dr. King would have admonished and even chastised us, “All lives of God’s Children matter!” 

I highly recommend the motion picture “Selma” to all of my readers. It is a must-see, a magnificent triumph of cinematic storytelling. I just can’t WAIT for the DVD to come out!

posted by Daneil zeleke