As ‘Africa’s top kleptocrats … gathered at their annual summit’ in Kampala, US Attorney General Eric Holder and US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told those assembled that the US Justice Department has established the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) to recover criminally acquired funds, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Corruption and the misappropriation of funds have a devastating impact, Mariam stresses, and in developing an initiative to combat elite impunity, it seems that ‘President Obama … has finally found the silver bullet to deal with Africa’s corrupt thugs.’

The Obama administration must hold Meles Zenawi to account for gross human rights abuses against his people in Ethiopia, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam argues that although the US has instilled a hope for a better future in the vision of the oppressed, without a realignment of US foreign policy and subsequent pressure against the regime in Ethiopia, belief will deteriorate into despair and anti-Americanism in the country. ‘It is time for the US to fish or cut bait in Ethiopia’, writes Mariam.

Although US government has pledged to defend human rights, it hasn’t followed up on this promise in Ethiopia, argues Alemayehu G. Mariam. Despite the detention and torture of hundreds of political prisoners by the Ethiopian government, the United States continues to provide aid to the country, allowing the country’s current dictatorship to maintain its power and deprive citizens of their human rights, Mariam writes. Arguments that 'forceful action' could create ‘instability’ in the country are no justification for the US’s failure to defend the human rights of ordinary Ethiopians, Mariam adds.

It seems the concern for the liberation of the oppressed injected into US foreign policy is merely a muted growl from a seemingly ‘toothless and clawless (paper) tiger’, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam voices the frustrations of those in Ethiopia who lay witness to the empty human rights rhetoric of US foreign policy makers, and urges the US to back up its big human rights talk with big human rights action in the country so to avoid its descent as a silent witness to the crimes of dictatorship.

If a single hummingbird tries hard enough it has the power to put out a forest fire. As Alemayehu G. Mariam writes, Ethiopian citizens and opposition politicians – the hummingbirds – have become too complacent and uncoordinated to mobilise and end the current dictatorship in Ethiopia. Despite claims that only violence can end the authoritarian rule, Mariam points to the examples of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela as cases where citizens have united for a cause to peacefully end suppression. He also points to periods of history where ‘hummingbirds’ have prevailed, only to take the same road as the ‘forest fire’ predecessors they’ve succeeded. Mariam calls for the need for a united Ethiopian political opposition and citizenry to bring an end to the current dictatorship.