Meles Zenawi

"Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list."

"..countries pretend their foreign policy is based on democratisation when this is clearly not the case. For all the challenges in Zimbabwe, for example, it is a bit of a stretch to say it is less democratic than some of the sheikhdoms of the Gulf. But none of the sheikdoms has a problem visiting Europe."

"If it is presumed that the Kenyans will democratise in order to eat the peanuts of development assistance from the European Union... it would be a big mistake."

"I have never heard of any convincing reason as to why we should privatize land at this stage."

"I am proud to be an Ethiopian. I am proud to be a part of that history."

"We believe the problem between ourselves and Eritrea will have to be resolved through dialogue, but it takes two to tango."

"Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, made more progress in education, health and economic development under his leadership than at any time in its history, and it is a tragedy for the Ethiopian people that they have lost a committed leader and a champion of children at such a young age."

"A man of his generation—the generation that casts off foreign rule, or overthrows a bloody dictatorship—does not often turn out to be a model democrat. He put on a good act in the 1990s during the post-Berlin Wall euphoria, but his stupid war with Eritrea cost him domestic support, and then his real instincts took over. Awful decisions, especially when war with Eritrea began in 1998, cost thousands of lives. But on the life-and-death issue of creating a viable economy for his nation, he got it just about right, arguably saving millions of lives. If we want to avoid Kaplan’s world, other quasi-democratic states around the continent would do well to take note of Meles' victories as well as his mistakes."

"In 1991, Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia teamed together to liberate their respective countries from the brutal Ethiopian dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Seven years later, Isaias and Meles subjected their own people to a bloody and useless border war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and served no purpose other than to distract the two citizenries from the terrible job the two dictators were doing in running Eritrea and Ethiopia."