It always bothers me when facts are distorted in one way or another and put to public use for sinister purposes. Stiglitz even claimed that Meles is an economist by training....while he is just a high school graduate with a two year college training.

Meles is intellegent for his level of education and yet that does not justify his terrorist tactics and history to mislead the country into ethnic politics and imposing policies that are clearly against the national interest. As to the Yara scandal, we must turn our attention to ways and mechanisms by which our oppostion should be heard by greedy merchants. I think slogans and protests have little meaning to such merchants. We must be able to speak a language that they understand, a language that affects their bottom line, a language that burns their market. That is when YARA and its alikes will pay attention to our frustration for bribing our public officials whose policies are keeping millions in mesery and poverty.

Isayas was referred to as another Ghandi by American politicians. Samuel Doe was praised lavishly by Reagan, Noriega in his time, Marcos, Mobutu, and on and on and on. You all know the story. I think!

Western politicians make mistakes, sometimes willingly, sometimes out of carelessness and failure to put in the required effort to investigate situations.

Western economists, too, in their zeal to confirm some ideological bent or another, sometimes blind themselves to obvious failures. Friedman's Chile 'faux-miracle' is an example.

So while what Stiglitz says in not unimportant, we must weigh it with the facts. A glance at Ethiopia's economic and development indicators show that Ethiopia has made little progress over the last fourteen years, and any progress made has been undercut by high population growth. Can't hide from the facts!