Rogue Regimes and High Powered Lobbyists

September 1, 2010
(Press Statement)

In the last few years, advocacy for corrupt, dictatorial foreign regimes by high powered Washington D.C. lobbying firms, such as, DLA Piper has become a very lucrative business in the nation’s capital

Thanks to ProPublica and the Sunshine Foundation, the unholy alliance between DLA Piper and the rogue regime in Ethiopia is no more a secret. It is obvious and results have been verified that when leaders of rogue regimes hire high-powered Washington lobbyists, the voices of the thugs that oppress their people are heard, while the voices of their opponents remain crowded out.

According to a list Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker made public by ProPublica, DLA Piper, Dewey & LeBouef and Mark Saylor Co. made 908 contacts between 2007-2009 with Congressional Staffers on behalf of Zenawi’s regime for the handsome fee of $2.3 million dollars. The well-connected lobby firm, DLA Piper, pocketed the lion share of the fees. In the e-mail and phone contacts, DLA Piper effectively argued to remove the terms ‘political prisoners’ and ‘prisoners of conscience’ from H.R. 2003 the “Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007.” that condemned the Ethiopian regime for detaining opposition activists. Here we see that Zenawi successfully used American taxpayer’s money to defuse charges that his regime has turned increasingly authoritarian.

Zenawi knows his Washington influence peddlers and DLA Piper knows the value of a steadfast tyrant. As long as Zenawi steals from the Ethiopian people and throws money at them, neither DLA Piper nor Dewey & LeBoeuf seem troubled to do business with a notorious dictator. It is astonishing that while the majority of Ethiopians eke out a living on less than two dollars a day, the regime spends millions of aid money to employ the services of well connected D.C lobbyists. It is very unsettling to learn that Zenawi is using aid money to sway the opinion of American elected officials to make decisions that negatively impact the Ethiopian people.

For the ethically-challenged lobbyists such as DLA Piper, killing a human rights bill simply for the money is par for the course. But, regardless of what DLA Piper does, Ethiopia’s economic and political decay cannot be hidden from the international community; and no amount of image make-overs to bat down criticism of the atrocious human rights record will cleanse Zenawi’s bloody hands.

In light of the continuing tragedy in Ethiopia, the U.S. administration and Congress have the moral imperative to end the absurdity that allowed these high powered lobbyists to use American aid money for the poor to fatten their wallets and frustrate the good intentions of the U.S. government and its generous people.

To millions of poor Ethiopians, it is very troubling to know that their tax money is used to influence the United States Congress. To American taxpayers, it’s even more troubling to know that most of the money paid to DLA Piper is the same fund appropriated by their elected representatives to alleviate poverty in Ethiopia. The Obama Administration has made a strong verbal stance against supporting dictatorships and non-democratic regimes. It is time to match the words with actions.

On August 5, 2010, Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced S 3757 “Support for Democracy and Human Rights in Ethiopia Act of 2010.” We hope, this time, the Obama administration will not allow its foreign aid money to be squandered on DLA Piper lobbyists to kill yet another human rights bill in the United States Congress

Some examples of Payments being made to Lobbyists

Note: The above table shows only part of the amount of money woyane paid for lobbyists in 2007 and 2008

Detail list of 908 Contacts made by Lobbyists on behalf of Government of Ethiopia are available at www.foreignlobbying.org