(BLOOMBERG) – Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed has appointed a new army chief of staff, replacing Samora Yenus.
The appointment of General Seare (�ዓረ) Mekonnen, who was sworn in today by President Mulatu Teshome, marks the first change at the top in 17 years in Ethiopia’s army, which plays a dominant role in the country that has Africa’s biggest population after Nigeria. He belongs to the Tigrayan ethnic group that’s largely held the top ranks of the military, security and intelligence services since the then-rebel Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front seized power.
His appointment was announced late Thursday by Fana Broadcasting Corp., which is funded by the ruling party.
Named one of three deputy chiefs of staff earlier this year, Seare also previously headed the military’s northern command, whose jurisdiction covers areas bordering Eritrea.
PM Abiy also named General Adem Mohammed as the new director of the National Intelligence and Security Services, replacing Getachew Assefa, according to Fana on Thursday. Adem Mohammed, an ethnic Amhara who previously commanded Ethiopia’s air force, was also appointed as a deputy chief of staff of the army earlier this year.
Barely two months into his new job as a Prime Minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed has managed to simultaneously excite and alarm pretty much everybody. In Ethiopian political leadership, this is no small feat, where offending the public has been the norm than the exception. During his judiciously sequenced marathon cross-country check-up, he delivered a cautious message in the west while hitting a conciliatory tone in the east. In the capital, Addis Abeba, he forcefully challenged the youth and business owners to “do their fair share.� Yes, his bid to steer away from the political landmines got him some troubles, generating an instant fury on the front lines of social media, but many seem to get over it quickly.
Perhaps the most drastic of all changes so far is the announcement on Tuesday of the two major policy shifts: Eritrea and the economy, which need separate reflections. All of these happened in just two months. Of course, it is not yet the same as Lenin’s “there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.� However, given the fact that a few months ago the country seemed on the verge of catastrophe, incremental as one might think of these changes, the steps the new prime minister endeavors are laudable and praiseworthy.
The intricate challenges facing the new prime minister are overwhelming. Among the challenges that hold the PM’s immediate attention are the tasks of deconstructing the political, economic and social narratives, structures and institutions. The primary approaches employed by the TPLF dominated ruling party EPRDF over the last three decades have been divisive and polarizing. By inflating identity and manipulating real and imaginary historical events, the ruling cliques have created walls between the country’s diverse ethnic groups as a strategy to consolidate and monopolize power, both political and economic. Deconstructing institutions and replacing them with an inclusive structure could take some time. However, at least in his speeches Prime Minister Abiy has already given priority to deconstructing these divisive narratives. […] CONTINUE READING
The nonsensical war between the regimes in Addis Ababa and Asmara two decades ago claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. It was a war of attrition over small tracts of barren land that have no economic or political significance. After the war ended in 2000 and the “Algiers Treaty” was signed in 2002, a long cold war ensued as a result of the regime in Ethiopia refusing to honor the agreement. This has given Eritrea’s warlord Isaias Afwerki a pretext to declare a state of emergency, throw in jail all of his opponents, and stop any talk of a constitutional government. For the past 18 years, Eritrea has been a prison of its own people where young Eritreans who tried to escape the poverty-ravaged country are being shot in the back by soldiers. Eritrea is a nation that is slowly imploding.
Now, Ethiopia’s new prime minister Abiy Ahmed has decided to honor the U.N.-backed Algiers Treaty and remove Ethiopian troops from Badme, the disputed land that Ethiopian soldiers still occupy.
It seems that PM Abiy has made such a move over the objection of some in the ruling coalition for three reasons: 1) To end unnecessary conflicts in the region that his predecessors continuously instigated in order to divert the Ethiopian people’s attention from domestic troubles, 2) To outflank his opponents in the ruling coalition, particularly the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and 3) Build regional and international credibility for his leadership.
Badme will no longer be a source of instability in the region that both TPLF and Isaias Afwerki exploit to prolong their grip on power. The two former allies have turned the Horn Africa into a perennial war zone.
This is a new day in Ethiopia and the new Ethiopian leadership wants a new beginning. PM Abiy and his team are focusing on healing the traumatized region and growing an economy that benefits average citizens. In furtherance of these objectives, the PM has released thousands of political prisoners, apologized for the atrocities of the security forces, invited Ethiopian opposition parties to prepare for free and fair elections, invited Ethiopians in the Diaspora to invest in their country, and announced the opening up of major state-owned industries to private investors. The PM has done all those in just two months.
The Ethiopian government that is currently going through a major political transformation has decided to also revolutionize the Ethiopian economy by privatizing major industries, including Ethiopian Airlines and Ethio Telecom. The new economic policy is intended to expedite economic growth, solve hard currency shortage, and provide investment opportunities to Ethiopian and foreign investors. Watch the announcement in the video below.
One of the reasons Ethiopia’s so-called “fastest economic growth” has not benefited 99 percent Ethiopians because almost all of the profitable industries are owned by the government. Government ownership of these profitable industries has not benefited the average Ethiopian. It has also been a major source of corruption. It has made government officials millionaires while Ethiopians continued to be subjected to abject poverty.
This new policy is perhaps the best economic news in Ethiopian history. If Ethiopia wants to create real wealth that benefits the average Ethiopian citizen, this is the way to go. Privatizing industries is how Singapore, UAE, and other countries have transformed themselves from 3rd world countries into prosperous nations within one generation.
In Singapore, for example, government manages only those industries that are not profitable for the private sector. As a result, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world, richer per capita than even the United States.
With this new economic policy, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government is putting Ethiopia on a path of prosperity and political stability.
Ethiopia’s investors do not have to compete with government monopolies anymore.
Ethiopia’s youth do not have to migrate to other countries for economic opportunities.
Ethiopians in the Diaspora now have a huge incentive to invest in Ethiopian.
Ethiopia will finally have her own hard currency because Ethiopians will not find it necessary to take their money out of the country.
PM Abiy’s government has embarked on an economic policy that will finally result in the creation of real wealth that benefits average Ethiopians.
The Ethiopian Parliament has voted today to lift the 6-month state of emergency that was declared four months ago.
The Parliament has ended the controversial state of emergency law by approving a drafted bill that was submitted by the Council of Ministers on Sunday.
The state of emergency law was introduced in February in response to widespread protests in Oromia and Amhara regions of Ethiopia.
The law had given the military extraordinary and unconstitutional powers to stop the protests. But it made the civil unrest worse. The protests stopped only after a new prime minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed, was appointed in April who released thousands of political prisoners.
In Addis Ababa, a new day is breaking. A young man sits on the edge of the bed and puts his clothes on to play basketball. He looks sporty and full of energy. Only when he goes outside, you can see his handicap: he moves in a squat away, he uses his arms to push his legs forward. However, there is the utensil in front of the door, which enables him to live a nearly normal life: a wheelchair that he received from the wheelchair workshop of the Addis Guzo association in Berne.
The scene comes from a video on the laptop by Bernhard Wissler, who is behind the project Addis Guzo together with his wife Christine Oberli. The association was founded in Bern in 2010 and is recognized in Switzerland as a charitable organization.
Although it was not the plan at first, Wissler built his own wheelchair workshop in Ethiopia, where used wheelchairs from Switzerland are rebuilt, adapted and repaired – the Addis Guzo project. Wissler emphasizes the support of his wife as a central element: “I would never have done it without them.” The fight with local authorities until the organization was recognized was extremely difficult. In 2012, the workshop was finally opened. “If we had known all this before – we would not have done it,” says Wissler.
But the project has not been limited to the wheelchair workshop for a long time. Meanwhile, a whole center for people with disabilities has emerged: It is sewn, candles pulled, dolls produced and pottery. Add to all this work sports and fun: a place where people can play wheelchair basketball. He would not have dreamed that the trained electronics mechanic and the occupational therapist would once set up a center for people with disabilities in Ethiopia. “We actually got into this project quite naively.”
“Had we known all that before – we would not have done it.”
Would Wissler call his commitment a development aid? “That’s too strong a word,” he says. He prefers to call his project “disaster relief”, because in Ethiopia the provision of wheelchairs is catastrophic. Wissler describes the situation on the ground like this: Some people live with extreme curvatures of the spine or crawl on the ground because the legs are paralyzed. Some are so handicapped by their disability that they have to be carried around by relatives.
Addis Guzo wants to counteract these conditions with wheelchairs and therapy. What distinguishes the aid project from others? “That we not only deliver the wheelchairs, but also repair them. This is how we ensure a long-term commitment, “says Wissler. Other organizations were working with cheap materials from China that would quickly break down. To prevent wheelchairs from being resold, each product gets a number, is photographed and registered in a database. Anyone who resells spare parts quickly becomes unmasked and does not receive a new wheelchair.
Staying in Africa forever was out of the question for Wissler. “There are two worlds on a planet for me,” he says. From the beginning, it was the plan to hand over the center to a local project manager. The center is now running autonomously with the support of Wissler and Oberli from Switzerland. In Interlaken, Wissler has set up a workshop with the newly founded Rollaid association and the partner company Qualifutura, which collects, repairs and sends wheelchairs and spare parts to Ethiopia. Recycling has become a kind of passion for Wissler: almost all the material in the workshop is second-hand.
A lot of material has already accumulated in Interlaken. The only electrical parts are the robust traction devices. Consciously no electric wheelchairs are sent to Addis Ababa, because there would be a lack of funds to repair the defective electronics. Only those who have to travel a long distance to work receive such a luxurious traction device. Finally, what does Addis Guzo actually mean? Wissler smiles. It is an expression in Amharic, a language of Ethiopia. It means «new journey» or «new journey».Â
