Meanwhile, at the same time that Lukas Lundin made his $100 million commitment to the Clinton Foundation, another major foreign investor with much at stake in Africa was doing the same thing. Less than three months after Hillary announced her presidential bid, Bill was in London for a meeting with a reclusive Saudi sheikh named Mohammed al-Amoudi.
Amoudi was the head of a sprawling conglomerate called the Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies (MIDROC), which had extensive interests in Ethiopia including mines, agriculture, hotels, hospitals, steel, and cement.
Born in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian mother and a Yemeni father, Amoudi grew up in Saudi Arabia and became the kingdom's second richest man. Much of his wealth derived from his close relationship with Ethiopia's repressive government, which sold him government assets-mines, concessions, and land-for deeply discounted prices.
An enormous amount of his wealth was tied up with that government and he took acts likely aimed at helping it stay in power. On May 14, 2007, in a small ceremony the sheikh announced that he was committing $20 million to the Clinton Foundation. He started things off with a check for $2 million.
Bill Clinton and Mohammed al-Amoudi
Amoudi was familiar with the money ways of Washington. His lobbying firm in Washington included Senators George Mitchell, Lloyd Bentsen (who had been treasury secretary when Bill was president), and Bob Dole as paid advisers.
In May 2007, when he made his commitment to the Clinton Foundation, the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act (H.R. 2003) had just been introduced by Congressman Donald Payne. The bill quickly acquired eighty-five cosponsors in the House and passed on October 2, 2007.
The United States was sending hundreds of millions in taxpayer money to Ethiopia every year: the bill called for tying that aid directly to progress on human rights.
Mohammed al-Amoudi
For Amoudi's interests, a bill pressuring the regime that had given him so much reform would be a disaster. Amoudi's business interests were protected by the ruling regime in Ethiopia. Indeed, some of his businesses had been purchased at bargain-basement prices during the privatization of government assets.
A democratic election bringing in new leadership would put them at risk. As the bill moved to the US Senate, many looked to see where Senator Clinton would come down. After all, she was the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mohammed al-Amoudi
An Ethiopian human rights organization sent a letter in 2009 to former president Clinton at the Clinton Foundation warning that the donation was an attempt to influence US policy toward Ethiopia. "We have reason to believe that the huge donation to the Clinton Foundation was made on behalf of the Ethiopian government. ... Although we believe in philanthropy, there is something troubling with this picture. By all accounts, Sheikh Amoudi, the owner of Ethiopia's famous Sheraton Hotel, is not known for much philanthropy."
The letter, a copy of which was also sent to Hillary at the State Department, further noted what observers in other countries had seen. "Local AIDS organizations that appealed to the billionaire [Amoudi] for paltry sums were turned down," the Ethiopians wrote to Clinton. "So why would a wealthy man from one of the poorest countries in the world say no to organizations in his country and yet easily cough up $20 million for an American organization 10,000 miles away? Is this just a coincidence that the donation was made at the start of U.S. presidential elections?"
Mohammed al-Amoudi
The letter also asserted that the Clinton Foundation had a close working relationship with the oppressive government. "The work of the Clinton Foundation in Ethiopia is loosely intertwined with government operations. We urge you to go beyond the government and to seek out independent community organizations that are closely working with the poor."
Mohammed al-Amoudi
Neither Bill nor the foundation ever responded. Instead, as we will see, when Hillary became secretary of state, Amoudi's companies received special benefits from the US State Department, including taxpayer funds.
Much of Amoudi's wealth came from his relationship with Ethiopia's longtime dictator, Meles Zenawi. A diminutive man with a goatee and arched eyebrows, Zenawi had joined a rebel group fighting the Marxist Mengistu regime.
Meles Zenawi
He quickly rose through the ranks. When they seized power in 1991, Zenawi was thirty-six and became head of the country. It is hard to overstate how closely Amoudi's wealth was tied to Zenawi's rule in Ethiopia. (When Zenawi died in 2012 of a mysterious stomach ailment, Amoudi would say, "I lost my right hand.")
Meles Zenawi
Amoudi had been able to buy 70 percent of Ethiopia's National Oil Corporation from the government. One of the sheikh's companies, Saudi Star, was given leases on tens of thousands of acres of Ethiopian land.
Meles Zenawi
The sheikh controls Ethiopia's steel production and is the country's exclusive gold exporter, with one of his mines (also purchased from the government) producing more than ten thousand pounds of gold and silver per year.
Meles Zenawi
Zenawi's policies pushed local people off their lands, decimated forests, and encroached on game reserves. The list of his offenses is immense, reported Britain's prestigious The Lancet, including politically manipulating the foreign aid the United States and other countries provide: “badly needed food and agricultural aid that had been given by foreign donors was being denied to hungry village communities not allied with the ruling party."