ADDIS ABABA - Jean Chrétien resumes his crusade against African poverty tonight in one of the world's five poorest nations, but he will see few of the very people his mission is designed to assist.
Instead, Mr. Chrétien will spend his two-day stop in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in the luxurious confines of Africa's best hotel -- a 72,000-square-metre compound of Las Vegas-style extravagance that is surrounded on three sides by slums full of beggars and corrugated tin-roofed shacks.
Mr. Chrétien will become the first Western leader to stay overnight at the Sheraton Addis, a US$400-million complex designed in neoclassical Italian villa style, where doormen in top hats greet VIP guests and butlers attend to every guest's need. Even standard rooms have three telephones and a fax machine.
The Prime Minister will find a sweetheart rose on the bed in his executive suite and white cotton robes embossed with the hotel's gold insignia. He can open French doors and look out over a marbled courtyard lined with palm trees and a four-tiered fountain with water pumped in from an on-site treatment plant.
The hotel's opulence came as a shock to Canadian politicians, media and support staff who arrived in Addis Ababa two days in advance of Mr. Chrétien.
"It seems like a contradiction, to have one of the nicest hotels in one of the poorest countries," said Denis Paradis, the government's junior minister responsible for Africa and Latin America.
Mr. Paradis acknowledged he was disappointed Mr. Chrétien's itinerary could not include more African villages and towns.
"One day, for sure, it's not enough," he said. "But you have to start somewhere. In Africa, I think it is for the leaders to finally agree on how to implement the reforms."
Ethiopia ranks 158th of 162 countries on the UN human development index -- its economy devastated by decades of civil war and intermittent famine. The average Ethiopian, whose annual income is about US$200, would have to work almost half a year to afford one night's stay at the hotel.
Mr. Chrétien is here to meet Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, and deliver a keynote address to a joint meeting of the Organization for African Unity and the United Nations' Economic Council for Africa.
His visit to Africa has been marked by similar stays at luxury resorts and meetings with various heads of state.
It is a necessary component of any high-level diplomatic mission, especially one in advance of a G8 summit this June focused on producing a long-term African aid package.
But Mr. Chrétien is not planning to complement his official tour by meeting with ordinary Ethiopians or workers from any Canadian-funded aid projects.
Partly by design, and partly by circumstance, Mr. Chrétien will only see "the real Africa" once during his entire six-nation tour. He spent 45 minutes visiting with peasant farmers in the tiny village of Bamishi, Nigeria, last Saturday. Mr. Chrétien was scheduled to visit an AIDS clinic in Pretoria, but that was cancelled because of his decision to attend yesterday's funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in London.
Keith Martin, the Canadian Alliance's foreign affairs critic for Africa, said Mr. Chrétien will get a distorted view of the continent by meeting only with its leaders.
"If he doesn't meet with a broad range of African society, he doesn't have a picture of Africa and what needs to be done for the continent," said Mr. Martin, who has visited Africa 18 times.
"He should get an on-the-ground, gut feeling of how people live, their wants and needs. If you meet just with the leaders, you really have no idea of what is needed."
In Addis Ababa, the four-year-old Sheraton Hotel has come to be seen both as a symbol of hope for the struggling nation and a symbol of the vast chasm between rich and poor.
The hotel was built as a gift to the Ethiopian people by Sheik Mohammed al-Amoudi, a Saudi national who was born in Ethiopia. The multi-millionaire sheik, who runs a global conglomerate, decided to build the mammoth complex after the fall of the Derg military junta in 1991. It opened in February, 1998, just as Ethiopia and Eritrea began a two-year border war.
"Some people may ask -- why build such a beautiful hotel in Addis Ababa? It is very simple," says Jean-Pierre Manigoff, the general manager of the Sheraton, which employs 650 people. "He strongly believes, as we do, that Ethiopians deserve to be put back on the map of major capitals in Africa.... It was Sheik Mohammed's wish to participate in the development of the country, which had been suffering a long time."
The hotel, which features nine restaurant and bars, was built on a site formerly occupied by about 2,000 Ethiopian squatters. Sheik Mohammed relocated the families in new homes equipped with both electricity and plumbing.
Since its opening, the hotel has been host to virtually all of the continent's leaders, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mandela, and Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, have also stayed here.
The hotel was recently given the "Ultimate Service Award" as Africa's finest. But opinion is divided as to whether the new Sheraton has helped revive Addis Ababa's economy, or change Ethiopia's image as a dangerous place to do business.
"The idea was that this would generate tourism, but the security situation in the country has kept people away," said Professor Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, chairman of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, who nonetheless says he has no objections to the hotel.
"I personally wouldn't promote that sort of development. I would present the Sheik with 101 different alternatives for how to spend his money. But if he chose to do it with his private business, he can do it."
Mr. Chrétien's presence alone is evidence of the hotel's success in attracting Western dollars, Mr. Manigoff said.
"Westerners have a misconception of Ethiopia. The image of the famine is very much anchored in their head. Fortunately, Ethiopia is much more than that," he said.
"The fact of building such a beautiful hotel, even though the country may look so poor economically, contributes to the Ethiopia's development. It has definitely worked. The Prime Minister of Canada is here. What more proof can we have?"
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