ETHIOPIA-POLITICS: Worrying Signs

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jul 15 1996 (IPS) - Ethiopia’s government has been credited with restoring the rule of law in the African nation since 1991, but its relative stability, already threatened by separatist movements, could be further jeopardised by political score- settling.

In the just over 12 months that have followed the June. 26, 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, gunmen have shot at two senior Ethiopian government officials, killing one and wounding the other.

It may be too early to talk of a trend, but an ominous message came from the group that claimed responsibility for the second attack, in which Transport and Communications Minister Abdul Mejid Hussein was wounded on Jul. 8 in front of his office in Addis Ababa.

Al-Itihad Al-Islam (Islamic Unity), a rebel group fighting for the independence of Ethiopia’s eastern region of Ogaden — populated mainly by ethnic Somalis — warned in a press statement faxed to international news agencies here, that Hussein would not escape the next time it targetted him.

Hussein heads the Ethiopian Somali Democratic League, which opposes secession and is allied to the ruling Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The rebels accused him of dividing Ethiopia’s Somalis.

Al-Itihad’s spokesman, Abdulkadir Dhaqane threatened that Al- Itihad Al-Islam would carry out more attacks on Ethiopian state officials until Ogaden was free. Dhaqane said from his base in Mogadishu, Somalia, that his group intended to kill 18 other senior Ethiopian officials, whose names he did not give.

An Ethiopian political refugee here, who preferred not to be identified by name, told IPS that his country could be in for a new spiral of political violence.

“My reading is that the Egyptian Islamic militants who tried to kill Mubarak in Addis Ababa last year have set a bad precedent for our people,” he said. “As a result, we are now seeing a culture of political assassination creeping in in Ethiopia.”

Not that political murders are anything new in Ethiopia, where thousands of people were killed in the 1980s by the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, overthrown in 1991. But, said the refugee, in the past it was the government that eliminated its opponents. “Now you don’t know who is pulling the trigger.”

Early this year, another senior official, army commander Haielom Araya, was shot dead in the capital, Addis Ababa, by an “unidentified person”, as government officials put it.

Eye-witnesses said Araya was shot six times at point-blank range following an altercation with another man in a bar. He died instantly. The culprit has not yet been caught.

‘Ethio News’, an opposition newsletter published here, blamed the killing on Eritrea and accused Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi of abetting it.

It charged that Araya was shot by an Eritrean suspected of being an agent of the Asmara government. It also said the incident occurred in a bar owned by an Eritrean and frequented mainly by top officials of the EPRDF government.

“The murder of Haielom Araya highlights the increasing control of the Eritrean rulers over Meles Zenawi,” it claimed. “The government of (Eritrean President) Isaiah Affwerki is empowered to do whatever it wants in Ethiopia because Meles Zenawi gives …prominence to the interest of Eritrea.”

‘Ethio News’ charged that Haielom had been at loggerheads with Zenawi over the “domination” of the ruling EPRDF by Eritrea.

Eritrea, a tiny Red Sea state, achieved its independence from Ethiopia in 1991, after a 30-year armed struggle led by the now- ruling Eritrea People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). Affewerki helped set up the Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which formed the backbone of the EPRDF.

While Araya’s killing could be an isolated event, it is less easy to dismiss the attempt on Hussein’s life which has highlighted the threat the armed opposition poses to Ethiopia’s security.

For the past four years, Ogaden has been plagued by hit-and-run rebel attacks against government forces, while insurgents are also active in the region of Oromia, home to the Oromos, the biggest ethnic group among Ethiopia’s 55 million people.

The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ethiopia’s largest rebel group, suspended a protracted, low-intensity armed struggle against Addis Ababa after the EPRDF fought its way to power in 1991 and joined the new administration. However, it later pulled out and resumed its struggle for self-determination.

Along with other opposition groups, it opposed Ethiopia’s first multi-party election in 1995 claiming that it was a sham intended to cement power by the Tigreans, Zenawi’s ethnic group.

In June this year, the OLF signed an accord with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the main separatist group in the Somali-populated region.