Meles Zenawi

It is illegal to be a member of an organization that is challenging the constitution by armed force.

When push comes to shove, people vote alone.

Imagine a government which has delivered double-digit growth rates for over seven years losing an election anywhere on earth. It is unheard of for such a phenomenon to happen.

In the urban areas, we have focused on infrastructure roads, telecommunications, power.

We have built tens of thousands of schools, clinics and rural roads.

I cannot separate my achievements from what can be considered as the achievements of the ruling party.

I would love to be the African leader that steps down, that overthrows this idea of a Big Man ruler. I don't want to stay in office forever.

Eritrea is hellbent on destabilising Ethiopia. It does not care who it sleeps with.

I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story.

Some people think African states cannot be trusted with the cookie jar. But there are absolutely good NGOs who have this feeling of human solidarity and who also recognize that their work can only be supplementary to the government.

Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long , it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch - emergencies, but no famines.

When you have an emergency, there is the urge to do whatever it takes to see people get assistance.

While all democratic systems are works in progress, ours started rather late and therefore has a longer distance to cover. But democratic transformation for us is not mimicking some facets of Western governance. The focus has been on building institutions of democratic governance.

Democracy cannot be a plaything for the capital cities. It has to infiltrate every nook and cranny in the country, including the village.

After Nigeria, we are the second biggest black African nation. We are the headquarters of the African Union. We are the only African country that has never been colonized. This is perhaps the last surviving African civilization.

Over the years, I've come to recognize that democratization in Ethiopia is not just a matter of choice. It's a matter of national survival. I am deeply convinced that we either democratize and have a good chance of surviving, or if we fail to do so, we disintegrate.

Of course everybody's thinking evolves over time. Only dead people cease learning, and I am not certified dead yet. So I am still learning.

We believe democracy cannot be imposed from outside in any society. Democracy is the expression of a sovereign people.

Our position is that we can sit down and talk to try to solve our problems through dialogue.

The... provisional government unwaveringly believes that it can solve all the present problems together with the broad masses of Ethiopia. However, we can do this only if all the people come out in unison to implement our planned undertakings.

As a person, I have never been discourteous or nasty to anybody. I may have stood my ground a bit too directly, a bit too firmly, and I believe I have, over a number of years, learned to be a little less direct.

I know more now than I did in the past about the process of democratization. I know more about the pitfalls.

Of course everybody's thinking evolves over time.

It does surprise me that intelligent people in the 21st century could claim that if you respond to the terrorists with force, you spawn terrorism, but if you appease them, you somehow tame them. This argument, as I said, is very interesting, and very surprising.

I think the Eritrean government is aware that any full-scale invasion of Ethiopia along the lines of 1998 could turn out to be suicidal... And we will not respond to any provocation short of all-out invasion. We are already engaged in a much more fruitful war - against poverty.