ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) — The Ethiopian government ruling Woyanne ruling in Ethiopia confirmed on Wednesday that insurgents had attacked an army base five days before national elections, but denied the rebels had seized control of the garrison town.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which wants autonomy for the Ogaden region and its ethnic Somali population, said on Tuesday it had captured the garrison town of Malqaqa and killed 94 soldiers.
“Some insurgents belonging to the ONLF have tried to attack our local militia and the police,” government spokesman Shimeles Kemal told Reuters.
“In retaliation, the militia was able to defeat the attack completely, killing all of the rebel forces. Only minimal casualties have been sustained by our local militia. No garrison town has been captured,” he said.
Reporters and aid groups cannot move freely in the area without government escorts and regular accusations from both sides are hard to verify.
The Ogaden region is said to contain mineral deposits and foreign firms including Malaysia’s Petronas [PETR.UL] and Vancouver-based Africa Oil Corporation (AOI.V) are exploring for oil. The ONLF regularly warns foreign firms against prospecting.
Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the rebels — who have been fighting for more than 20 years — after a 2007 attack on an oil exploration field owned by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
Analysts say the rebels are incapable of ousting the government but can hamper development and weaken security forces in the Ogaden with hit-and-run attacks.
The ONLF accuses the Ethiopian Woyanne military of killing and raping civilians and burning villages in the region as part of its effort to root out them out.
In November, the group said it had captured seven towns in the region and killed almost 1,000 Ethiopian Woyanne troops.
The government Woyanne confirmed then that the rebels had launched an assault but Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told reporters they had been “crushed”.
The government Woyanne has also said that neighbouring Eritrea may try to spoil the May 23 elections using Ethiopian rebel groups. Ethiopia Woyanne accuses its arch-enemy of funding the ONLF.
Ethiopia’s last elections in 2005 ended with street riots after the ruling party and the opposition both claimed victory.
The government Woyanne said the violence was planned by the opposition to force unconstitutional change. Security forces killed 193 people and seven policemen also died.
Tigray Region, Ethiopia (VOA) — Tensions are high in Ethiopia ahead of the May 23 elections for parliament. It will be the first nationwide vote since the flawed 2005 election that ended in violence, leaving hundreds dead. The country’s ruling party is facing a stern test in its own backyard.
Rugged describes Tigray, its land and its people. The sparsely populated region bears the scars of two wars over the past quarter century.
Now another battle is raging, this one political. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its umbrella group, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, have held power since seizing control of Ethiopia’s government in 1991. This is Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s stronghold.
But a breakaway TPLF faction is challenging the ruling party on its home turf. TPLF political chief Tedros Hagos charges the opposition is trying to overthrow constitutional order.
“Some of the parties have ill motives,” he said. “Their agenda is violence. They think through means of street violence they can topple this government.”
Opposition parties counter that what violence has occurred has mostly been directed against them. Alem Gebreyohannes’s brother Aregawi Gebreyohannes was an Arena Tigray candidate until he was murdered. Police and a government-run human rights group ruled the killing was not political. But Alem says the investigation was a coverup.
“This was not an ordinary killing,” he said. “The police didn’t really try to find out what the motive was. What witnesses said and what is in the report are totally different.”
Another Arena-Tigray candidate says his home was attacked with grenades. Ayale Beyene says the house, on a mountain ridge 15-minutes by foot from the nearest road, was not damaged, but his family was terrified.
“In the middle of the night, we heard a sound,” he recalled. “We were afraid to go outside. When my brother came home, he found another unexploded grenade outside the door.”
Tigrayans are known for keeping their political views to themselves, but domestic worker Almaz Tadesse offered high praise for Mr. Meles.
“There is no better leader than Meles Zenawi. He is our lord,” she said.
Mr. Meles also has sharp critics. Yohannes Abraha blames the prime minister for the breakdown in relations with Eritrea that left Ethiopia without access to the sea. He says the TPLF must be ousted before Ethiopia can regain its former Red Sea ports.
“I want the ports to be back to Ethiopia through peaceful means. It’s the will of the people,” he said.
Prime Minister Meles is himself facing an unprecedented challenge in his hometown, Adwa, from a former neighbor and comrade in arms. Aregash Adane is a top TPLF fighter turned fierce critic of the group’s Marxist-Leninist ideology known as Revolutionary Democracy.
“Nineteen years has taught us something, and I don’t think this Revolutionary Democracy will bring basic change to our country,” she said. “It has proved a failure.”
Mr. Meles dismisses the criticism, calling it “a reflection of the heat of the competition.”
The neighborhood where he and Aregash grew up hasn’t changed much since they were young. An elderly man in the street says he remembers them both. But when asked whom he prefers, he politely declines.
Forty policemen march two-by-two through a remote Ethiopian town drawing stares from local farmers for their incongruous high-tech stab vests, body armour and riot helmets.
“Look, they are trying to terrify us,” says opposition politician Teshale Idosa, his eyes widening. “And it is working. They are terrifying. We are terrified.”
The tension is palpable in the Horn of Africa nation’s Oromia region ahead of national elections Sunday, with six people killed in just four weeks.
The region is home to the Oromo, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group with 27 million out of 80 million people. The area also produces most of the coffee in Africa’s biggest grower, along with oil seeds, sesame and livestock, which are all key exports.
Oromia is seen by analysts as key to the future of sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous nation, a country that is Washington’s main ally in the region and a growing destination for foreign direct investment.
On the road to Midakegne, soldiers and police stop and search cars, pat people down and check IDs, sometimes taking notes. Locals often seem frightened to talk about politics.
The eight-party opposition coalition, Medrek, says two of the six dead were theirs, while the ruling party says it has lost one candidate and a policeman was killed.
Another two died when a grenade was flung into a meeting of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), part of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition
VOTER CONFUSION
Also playing on people’s nerves is the fact that Ethiopia’s last national elections in 2005 ended with a disputed result. Seven policemen and 193 protesters died in street riots in the capital Addis Ababa and top opposition leaders were jailed.
The opposition argues it would sweep to power if the ruling party stopped intimidating and jailing its members. The government dismisses that accusation as nonsense and says it will win easily on its development record.
The ruling party has embarked on massive investment in infrastructure such as roads and energy. The International Monetary Fund said last month that Ethiopia would excel this year with growth in excess of 5 percent.
Many people in Oromia told Reuters they were confused about how to vote, with some towns overwhelmingly supporting the opposition coalition Medrek, and others the OPDO.
Opposition figures say the Oromo have never had any power despite the OPDO’s place in the government. They see that party as controlled by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Tigrayan People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (TPLF) — which they say runs the other three parties in the ruling coalition.
Some farmers told Reuters that officials deny them seeds and fertilizer to force them into joining the OPDO. One man said he was fired after 20 years as a chemistry teacher because he joined Medrek. OPDO members denied the allegations.
“Our party is fully independent and Oromo,” OPDO official Alemayehu Ejio, told Reuters. “We are even more popular now because of our development work.”
ELECTRICITY AND WATER
In Midakegne, 40 km (25 miles) from the nearest Tarmac road, the opposition says a 23-year-old activist, Biyansa Daba, was beaten to death. The government says he died of cancer and that the opposition is trying to spoil a poll it will lose.
Merera Gudina, leader of Medrek member party, the Oromo People’s Congress, is tailed on the road to the secluded town by three men in a pick-up truck. His car, and another containing Medrek activists, are stopped and searched by soldiers.
When Merera arrives and makes a speech, promising more power to the Oromo people, he is filmed and photographed by the three men while armed police watch.
OPDO officials in Midakegne repeated that Biyansa died of cancer, but three people separately approached Reuters to say he was severely beaten.
Earlier the same day, as the OPDO held a large rally in the town of Gorosole, locals told Reuters they would vote for the ruling party because they were grateful for electrification and the provision of safe drinking water to the town’s school.
The ruling party often points to its development achievements. Signs of progress in Oromia since the 2005 elections are evident.
An impressive road network has been built, towns have electricity and telephone masts are everywhere.
Just as the meeting is about to reach its climax — the unveiling of the new water tap for the school — Merera and his supporters appear in two cars and drive through the crowd. They throw leaflets into the air, and at the OPDO officials.
“Look at them,” shouts Yohannes Mitiku, Merera’s rival for the area’s parliamentary seat. “They are trying to ruin our rally because they see that people support us.”
“They say we intimidate them but yet they feel free to do this,” he told Reuters.
Once the tap is unveiled, people filter back to villages in the surrounding hills, their absence revealing an empty street littered with leaflets and flags.
“Yes, the OPDO have been developing Oromia,” says an old man who has watched the commotion. “But it’s development and repression at the same time. They can build roads to the moon but I won’t vote for them until we’re equal.”
Ethiopian Review, in collaboration with other Ethiopian media, will interview Col. Alebel Amare, senior leader of the newly formed Amhara Democratic Force Movement, on Friday, May 21, starting at 2 PM Washington DC Time. The interview be broadcast live in Ethiopian Review Online Paltalk Room. For more info: [email protected]
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Afrigue en ligne) — Western diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa have sent out warning messages to their citizens in Ethiopia or those planning to travel there, as tension builds in the Horn of Africa country ahead of the 23 May polls.
The French Embassy, in an email sent to the country’s citizens Thursday Morning, advised them to avoid public places, public transportation systems and stay away from any demonstrations and public gatherings by Ethiopians.
The Embassy also warned the citizens to prepare stocks of food, water, electricity sources and fuel ahead of the polling day.
For those out of the capital, Addis Ababa, the Embassy has also announced a 24-hour-ready telephone service through which that they can contact the diplomatic mission in case of trouble.
Few days earlier, the U.S. Embassy had sent out a similar message to U.S. citizens in Ethiopia and those planning to travel to Addis in the coming weeks.
Amid fear of violence, tension is rising in Ethiopia ahead of the national elections, with accusations and counter-accusations of harassment and killings by the opposition and the government.
Already, violence has erupted among students in the countries major public universities.
Though government said a conflict last Saturday among Addis Ababa University students of the Oromo and Tigre ethnic groups was due to mobile phones theft, its spokesperson Wednesday admitted that it later took an ethnic dimension and blamed it on two opposition parties under the largest opposition coalition, Medrek.
‘Starting points might be the mobiles,’ Bereket Simon, chief of Government Communication Affairs Office, said Wednesday. ‘But hard core supporters of Arena and OPC trying to rally each other have had their hands adding fuel to the fire’.
Reports indicate that conflicts have expanded to Haromaya and Mekele ” public universities in the hearts of Oromia and Tigray regions, home to Arena and OPC, respectively â” but Bereket said he was not aware of such incidents.
Government said on Saturday a grenade thrown into a meeting of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), part of the ruling coalition, killed two and injured 14.
On Sunday, a policeman was stabbed to death by OPC members following an order by an officer of the party, government alleged. On Monday, the ruling party accused opposition members of killing one of its candidates.
The coalition of eight opposition parties, Medrek, said three of its members have been killed since campaigning began over two months ago.
Medrek is fielding the second-highest number of candidates after the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Front (EPRDF).
A 24 March Human Rights Watch reports accused Ethiopian government of waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists and rights activists ahead of the elections.
In the midst of the growing tension, however, government said its security forces would not use live ammunition or lethal weapons if violence occur during the elections.
Though it said it expected peaceful elections this time, the government has also warned that the police are prepared to handle any outbreak of violence ‘professionally’.
In 2002, the deep divisions in Kenya’s ruling Kanu party, allowed the National Rainbow Coalition led by President Mwai Kibaki to score an unprecedented landslide for an opposition party in Africa.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni and his ruling National Resistance Movement had a stranglehold on power until a 2000 split in the party led to the most serious challenge he had ever faced.
A former ally, Col Kiiza Besigye, broke away and faced Museveni in the February 2001 polls. The NRM saved itself only through a massive election swindle.
Now it’s the turn of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The Arena Party, formed as a breakaway by Meles’s former ally Gebru Asrat, is fielding a full contingent in the Tigray region, a traditional stronghold of the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
In Ethiopia’s highly tribal politics, Meles, himself a Tigrinya, used to win 100 per cent of the vote in the region of Tigray. His party is unlikely to lose, but it will probably not get 100 per cent again in the May 23 poll.
The post-Independence parties and those formed by victorious rebel groups as in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda are nearly impossible to defeat in elections, and have mostly been ousted by insurgent splinter groups.
But even more important for Africa’s future, is the difficulty these parties have had in carrying out so-called third generation reforms.
In common, they have been able to liberalise economies, write new constitutions that offer limited political competition and media freedom. But they have been unable to establish truly independent electoral commissions, fully independent courts, and unfettered press freedom.
Kenya is the only country that has moved close to third generation with its draft constitution. Its Bill of Rights, for example, goes much farther than any other country in the region has dared to go.
To understand why that is the case, one needs to consider that Kibaki is not a founding father president. Mozambique, for example, has made tremendous progress in the past 10 years.
That became possible only after former president Joachim Chissano took charge after the death of Samora Machel in a plane crash in 1986.
One reason founding fathers of independent African countries, and leaders of victorious rebel armies have not been famously democratic is that they come to power with too much authority and power.
They founded their parties and rebel groups, led them in difficult times, and were triumphant. It is very difficult for anyone in their party or government to suggest they knew better or could be more competent.
In other words, the greatest danger to the African political child is the father. Because of this it requires the founder to die in a plane crash, to be murdered in his sleep, or to expire from natural causes for a new leader to emerge and make changes.
Chissano could not be Machel, because he had many equals in Frelimo.
Kibaki didn’t defeat Kanu alone in 2002. He needed the help of nearly a dozen other opposition parties. Tanzania has a good chance of progressing, because it is now in its third presidency since the great man Julius Nyerere stepped down in 1985.
The Ugandas and Ethiopias of this world will have to wait a while longer before they can play in the first political freedom division.
(Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: [email protected].)
