The Pragmatism of Meles Zenawi

By Marguerite Michaels and Meles Zenawi

During his interview with TIME's Nairobi bureau chief Marguerite Michaels, the President talked about his old Marxism and his new ideas.

Q. You ran a successful Marxist insurgency. What's different about running a democratic country?

A. Running an army is dealing with a group of highly motivated people with the same ideals, willing to undergo hardships. Now it's a very wide country with varying and contradictory interests. People are not willing to endure the same hardships.

Q. By dividing the regions along ethnic lines, don't you risk tribal violence?

A. Trying to bury the differences has always been the problem. Let it be out in the open. I'm not unduly worried about these clashes here and there. Sooner or later there will be a new platform of accommodation and understanding.

Q. Why won't you allow private ownership of land?

A. Let the peasant farmers alone. There's no need for those with money to compete with the peasant farmers. If democracy is based on the elite, it will fail as it has failed everywhere else in Africa.

Q. Peasants and workers. The language in your economic plan smacks of socialism.

A. The terms were not created by Marx. Here 90% of the population is peasants. For democracy to flourish in Africa you have to involve the population. Without rational economic policies you can't involve the population. Without democracy you cannot make rational economic policies work.

Q. Given your Marxist background, some people are asking, "When will the real Meles Zenawi emerge?"

A. Any attempt to improve life on earth will fail if it doesn't include the peasantry. That's my Marxism.