A leaked Cable of US Embassy Addis Ababa shows a July 2009 letter of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to Us President Barak Obama. Read the full text below.

[Note that: POTUS means President of The United States. ODA is Official Development Assistance]

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Reference ID – 09ADDISABABA1570
Created – 2009-07-06 13:13
Released – 2011-08-26 00:00
Classification – UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Origin – Embassy Addis Ababa

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OPDC ECON PREL ET

SUBJECT: G-8 – PRIME MINISTER MELES’ LETTER TO POTUS

¶1. (U) Embassy Addis Ababa received the following letter from Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to President Obama on July 6. We will send hard copy via diplomatic pouch. As Prime Minister Meles will attend the July 8-10 G-8 Summit in Italy, we request that the letter and its contents be brought to the President’s attention before any potential encounter with Prime Minister Meles who will also be in Italy.

¶2. (SBU) BEGIN TEXT OF DIPLOMATIC NOTE:

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia presents is compliments to the State Department of the United States of America and has the honor to attach herewith a letter from H.E. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to H.E. President Barack Obama regarding the upcoming G-8 Summit scheduled to be held in L’Aquila, the Republic of Italy from 8 to 10 July 2009.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia avails itself of this opportunity to renew to the State Department of the United States of America the assurances of its highest consideration.

Dated 2 July 2009

¶3. (SBU) BEGIN TEXT OF LETTER:

Your Excellency,

I am writing you as the participant in the recently held and very successful G-20 Summit on behalf of Africa.

Africa is very satisfied with the decisions made at the London summit of the G-20. To many Africans, the many concrete decisions made by the Summit to help overcome the current economic challenges were a welcome expression of solidarity with countries that have not contributed to the crisis but have been hit hard by it. We are also very pleased that some steps have been taken to implement the G-20 Summit decisions.

However, the crisis is continuing to cause untold damage on our economic prospects. Indeed, the projections by the international financial institutions continue to worsen. I, therefore, believe it is very important that the G-8 Summit in L’Aquila issue a statement re-affirming the G-20 Summit decisions on support for least developed countries and outlining specific guidelines on their implementation. I wish, therefore, to ask Your Excellency to use your good offices to enable the G-8 Summit to incorporate the following proposals in its final statement:

¶1. Re-affirm and redouble efforts to meet the Gleneagles ODA commitments were re-affirmed at the G-20 Summit and in previous G-8 Summits. Indeed, because such re-affirmation has not always been followed by specific actions, many people in Africa are expressing skepticism about such re-affirmation. I would therefore request that the upcoming G-8 Summit above and beyond re-affirming its commitment to Gleneagles ODA commitments, agree to publish national time-tables for meeting these targets.

¶2. Commit to the urgent disbursement of the 50 billion dollars of additional financing for low income countries. This commitment was the highlight of the London G-20 Summit for many Africans. We are very pleased that some of that money is likely to be made available to us through the IMF by the end of the year. However, most of the money is unlikely to be available to us given recent development.

What I am suggesting therefore is for the G-8 to reaffirm its commitment to the pledge and outline specific measures to implement it. In this regard, it is becoming obvious that the multilateral development banks are unable to substantially increase their support to us. We urge that the reasons for this be looked into and the obstacles addressed, including by replenishing IDA resources a year earlier than the scheduled time and increasing the capital of the African Development Bank, if necessary.

¶3. The only means of raising substantial resources quickly to assist Africa appears to be for those who do not need the additional SDRs and who wish to make the resources available

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to us to do so in good time. It is not clear what is impeding these countries from doing so. I am therefore suggesting that the IMF be tasked to look at the impediments, if any, and come up with means of overcoming them and report to the next G-20 Summit.

¶4. Take accelerated action on health. As many of us in Africa have said, the current crisis is not only threatening livelihood but also the lives of millions of our citizens. We therefore believe it is high time for the upcoming G-8 Summit to implement the recommendations of the High Level Task Force on innovative financing and health, including meeting the existing commitment of US $60 billion for health in poor countries.

It is with confidence that these proposals will be given serious consideration by the upcoming G-8 Summit that I ask, Your Excellency, to please accept the assurances of my highest consideration.

/s/
Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister

END TEXT OF LETTER.
YAMAMOTO

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