Stuck in Somalia

With regard to Eritrea, the U.N. peacekeepers are mostly gone from the border area. What's keeping the two countries from going to war again?
We're not going to war with Eritrea because we don't want to. One stupid war is enough. On the Eritrean side, I think what's keeping them from going to war is the recognition that if they were to do so they would not profit from it.

Will you stay as prime minister after your term expires in 2010?
This is likely to be my last term.

Local elections are approaching and a number of major leaders of the opposition who were jailed after 2005 aren't participating. Some of the remaining opposition parties say they've faced intimidation, harassment. What can you tell us about the status of Ethiopia's democracy efforts?
We are consolidating democracy with every step. After 2005 we discussed with the opposition who were in Parliament to address some of their concerns. We changed the way the national election board was organized. We have changed the bylaws of Parliament to make it possible for the minority to set the agenda for debate on specific dates. We are now processing a new press law that we very much hope will put our legislation on par with the best in the world. So we have continuously been addressing any shortcomings with the institutions in our country. Now, every time there is an election here, somebody cries foul. That unfortunately appears to be the normal practice in the continent, whether there is substantial evidence to back it or not. That we all have to live with.

Ethiopia is Africa's fastest-growing non-oil economy, but the U.S. Agency for International Development says that 9 million people in Ethiopia will require food assistance this year.
We have not had as much success in the pastoralist areas of our country as we have had elsewhere in terms of growth. And the pastoralist areas are very vulnerable to changes in weather. We need to move on the one hand to make pastoralism more productive, and on the other hand to try and encourage people, the pastoralists, to settle voluntarily. Secondly, we need to do more in the way of irrigation-related infrastructure, particularly in the drought-affected areas so that people benefit. And then in recent years poverty, which was largely rural is now shifting as the urban poor's income fails to improve as much as that of those in rural areas. So there are a lot of challenges that we need to address, in spite of the fact that we have had five years of double-digit growth.

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