Instability again threatens a divided Ethiopia

By Jonathan Manthorpe for Vancouver Sun

December 28, 2005

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Looking back, there were plenty of warning signs that it was not liberation but a new form
of occupation when the rebel army of Meles Zen aw i stormed into the Ethiopian capital of
Addis Ababa on May 28,1991.Those of us who rode in on rebel tanks, even crashing through
the ornate gates of the old regime’s last holdout in Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace, were not,
I think, blind to the evidence around us.

Ethiopia under Attack: “Zenawi’s repressive response, his general antipathy towards democratic development and his economic incompetence have brought tough talk from the United States and European Union.” (Caption and photo montage: Ethiomedia; Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Heavens)

There was no jubilation in the streets at the arrival of the rebels, mostly Tigrayans and Eritreans
from the north, and the conquerors clearly regarded the people of the capital with grave suspicion.
The security clampdown was immediate and the tough young northern fighters, both men and women,
were always quick to level their guns at one’s head. Their eyes told you they meant business and they
were quick on the trigger in those earh/ weeks of June.But some of us in the foreign press corps
in Africa had spent a lot of time on the rebel side of line in Ethiopia’s 20-year civil war and had
developed a high regard for the discipline, dedication, ingenuity and fighting abilities of the Eritreans
and Tigrayans.

We had no illusions that the rebels were natural liberals and democrats. It was just that the old
regime of the military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was so awful that any replacement had to
be an improvement. By and large that has been true, but Zenawi is showing the same kind of
infatuation with power that was the eventual undoing of Mengistu, now living in whisky-sodden
exile on the shores of lake Kariba in Zimbabwe. Zenawi is at best a reluctant democrat and has
stayed in power for nearly 15 years by running a political machine that allows the minority Tigrayans
to keep control of the eight primary ethnic groups that make up Ethiopia’s 77.4 million people.

The trick worked in 2000 when the opposition helped by boycotting elections. Even with the
opposition participating, it worked again in May this year when Zenawi’s Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front again appeared to win parliamentary elections. But the opposition
four-party Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) is having none of it. It believes the election was
fixed and there have been waves of demonstrations demanding new elections, at first mainly in
Addis Ababa but spreading to other towns and cities.

About 40 people have been killed by troops
and police, and hundreds detained. Zenawi’s repressive response, his general antipathy towards
democratic development and his economic incompetence have brought tough talk from the United
States and European Union. But the EU and the U.S.have had just as harsh language the opposition
CUD, urging the opposition to stop goading the government. The dilemma for Washington and Brussels
is that Ethiopia occupies an important piece of real estate on the Horn of Africa, bordered by dysfunctional
Somalia and marginally more stable Somaliland to the south and east, while to the west is Sudan with its
renewed ethnic turbulence and large Chinese oil interests.

The Ethiopian situation might be more manageable for the U.S. and EU had not Zenawi fallen out with
his rebel allies in Eritrea, which got its independence in 1993 as a reward for its role in the ouster
of Mengistu. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a sharp war in 1998 over the disputed border region of Badme.
A United Nations commission has awarded Badme to Eritrea, but Zenawi refuses to pull out, and both
sides have moved substantial forces into the contested region. In the Eritrean capital of Asmara,
President Isaias Afwerki, another supposed democrat who has taken the authoritarian path, cannot
afford to back down. His frail domestic political credibility is pushing him ever more towards another
military trial with Ethiopia, which he is likely to lose again because Eritrea’s 4.5 million population
is hopelessly outnumbered by his neighbour.Washington, Brussels and the UN seem unwilling to
take an assertive stand with either Asmara or Addis Ababa for fear they may spark a new wave of
instability in a critical part of Africa. But neglect is just as likely to deliver that outcome.

Sun International Affairs Columnist [email protected]