World shows confidence in the new Ethiopia

THE HAMMER and sickle is still emblazoned on the entrance to country villages, a reminder of the government's Marxist Leninist roots, yet Ethiopia is the largest recipient of US aid in sub Saharan Africa.

Africa's oldest country has been Christian since the fourth century AD (100 years before St Patrick came to Ireland) yet beside each orthodox church you will invariably find a mosque. Muslims probably outnumber Christians among the population of 55 million, but the two communities live peacefully side by side.

Contrast and coexistence are intrinsic elements of the Ethiopian make up, but they tend to confuse the outsider. Is Ethiopia a Marxist one party state, highly centralised and oppressive? Or is it a free market economy, opening its doors to the West after decades of isolation?

The truth is that both tendencies bare currently flourishing alongside one another. Ethiopia has been a model student of the World Bank, cutting government spending, eliminating bureaucracy and implementing structural adjustment programmes. As a result, it has achieved growth rates of over 7 per scent, massively boosted food output, and introduced an admirable form of regional government, on paper at least.

At the same time, however, the governing Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) remains highly centralist and secretive. Party membership is a sine qua non for getting on in public life. Much of the private economy has been taken over by companies owned by EPRDF members, and state run bodies are still notoriously badly run.

Still, observers say Ethiopia runs with less graft than most of its neighbours. There is a free press, lively but small. The opposition has boycotted the last two elections, but many of their leading figures are thoroughly discredited by their links to the murderous former Dergue regime which was ousted in 1991.

The US is sufficiently impressed to make Ethiopia the linchpin of its strategy in the Horn of Africa, a bulwark against the militant Islamic regime in Sudan and the mayhem of Somalia.

In return, Ethiopia was the first country to volunteer troops last year for the proposed African intervention force in eastern Zaire. Although this idea was later abandoned, it may yet be revived to deal with the mounting crisis in Zaire.

Italy, the former colonial power, has also given Ethiopia a vote of confidence by declaring its intention to return the ancient obelisk of Axum, which was plundered by Mussolini in the 1930s.

As ever in Africa, though, the dividing, line between stability and social breakdown remains extremely thin. A country which suffered one million deaths in the 1984 famine is now virtually self sufficient in food, yet the failure of the rains to arrive on time this year has placed this achievement in jeopardy.

Massive population growth is making it harder for Ethiopia even to hold on to what it has. The population stands at over 55 million, but with a growth rate of 3 per cent this will double within 20 years. Ethiopia has the highest fertility rate in the world at almost eight children per woman.

More people means more pressure on the land; forest cover has decreased from 40 per cent at the turn of the century to only 3 per cent today. The results include a more unpredictable rain pattern and massive soil erosion; during each rainy season, millions of tons of rich Ethiopian soil are washed away down the Nile. Millions of acres have turned to scrub, too infertile to support crops or a livestock population which is said to be the largest in Africa.

Much of Ethiopia is so poor it is impossible in some country villages to find a single object of the late 20th century - the oxen pull wooden ploughs, women carry water in earthenware jars which have been in their families for generations.

At the same time, though, the country has always had a larger middle class of trained, able professionals than is found in neighbouring countries. This factor and the continuance of peace are helping Ethiopia tackle its problems.