Muammar Al Khadafi

The BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have discovered in a joint investigation that foreign aid money given to Ethiopia is being used as a tool of political oppression, with those supportive of the regime there receiving assistance, and those who oppose it being denied any help.

An undercover team in Ethiopia found starving communities, denied food, seed, and fertiliser because they had failed to support Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Human rights abuses were also discovered, with evidence of mass detention, extra judicial killings, and the widespread use of torture by government forces.

One farmer in Ethiopia said that "Because of our political views we face great intimidation. We are denied the right to fertiliser and seeds because of political ideology".

Speaking of how aid money is distributed, Professor Veyene Petros, vice chairman of the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum, an alliance of opposition parties, said "Almost all of the aid goes through the government channels.....There is a great deal of political differentiation. People who support the ruling party, the EPRDF, and our members are treated differently. The motivation is buying support, that is how they recruit support, holding the population hostage".

Professor Petros accused donor nations, including the British government, of being "dismissive" when evidence of abuses was presented to them, and of taking little action to investigate.

Britain is a major donor of foreign aid money to Ethiopia, and will this year hand them £290 million, as well as further sums in emergency aid. Ethiopia is estimated to receive a total of £1.8 billion in development aid per year, with the USA and EU being major contributors.

"There is this industry of aid not only in the European Commission but in the different member countries, namely those who are the biggest aid donors to Ethiopia, like Britain, like Germany who want the business to continue as usual because they have their own interests at stake" said Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes.

It is a pattern we see many times with foreign aid, that it is maintained because of interests which have little in common with actually helping people, and its distribution actually supports regimes which, in many cases, have dubious human rights records to say the least.

As we see in this instance, aid can be used by recipient government as a tool suppress true democracy, and the imposition of democracy is something which British governments seem to be willing to go to war over.

Surely it's a bit hypocritical that one country gets bombed into submission because we don't like their leaders, and another will get given bundles of our money which will be used to help their leaders remain in place?