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192 Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia
frequently, participating in the monetary rewards. In many of these countries,
the lack or weakness of internal control systems also tends to
encourage higher levels of individual corruption.
In a few countries—such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (then
Zaire) under Mobutu (Meredith 2005); Cambodia in the 1990s
(Hammergren et al. 2008); and Haiti over the past several decades—low,
infrequently paid salaries seem an official policy to undercut judicial
integrity. Where judges, police, and others do not make enough to live on,
they are virtually forced into corruption, and this becomes still more
urgent, when, as reported in Cambodia, judges pay bribes to be placed on
the bench (Hammergren et al. 2008). The admonition to “live from the
people” attributed to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (quoted in several
interviews) was thus not unique.
Latin America: A case for comparison. In Latin America (chosen for
comparison because of relatively ample documentation of the problems),
the level of sector corruption is notoriously high. Throughout Central
America, with the exception of Costa Rica, ordinary citizens and experts
coincide in identifying police, judicial, and prosecutorial corruption as
well as corruption of private attorneys as systemic problems (DPLF
2007). Police not only take bribes but also participate actively in criminal
activities (kidnappings, collusion with drug traffickers, murders, and other
violent crimes).
Many South American countries show similar patterns: underpaid and
undertrained police moonlight as thugs-for-hire, and informed observers
claim to know the price to buy each level of judge. Under the Fujimori
administration in Peru (1990–2001), an initially promising judicial reform
quickly deteriorated into both organized and freelance corruption when
the president’s chief adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, set up his own corruption
rings within the courts, using them to harass government opposition
and to turn a tidy profit for himself (Hammergren et al. 2008;
McMillan and Zoido 2004).
Mexico’s current situation—drug traffickers’ penetration of the federal
and many state justice organs—is well documented (Bailey and Godson
1999), as is the Carlos Menem administration’s control of the Argentine
federal courts through an “automatic majority” in the Supreme Court of
Justice and manipulation of other appointments (Abiad and Thieberger
2005; Helmke 2005). Several African countries experience similar levels
of state-sponsored corruption among judges, police, and prosecutors
(USAID 2009; TI 2007), and as in Latin America, once the state captures