Ethiopia: Rebels Take Charge

Finding himself one moment a rebel, the next the de facto ruler of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi allowed himself a wry comment during a press conference in London last week. Asked about the banner hanging behind him, a red flag emblazoned with the image of an AK-47, the modern guerrilla’s weapon of choice, the leader of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front smiled. “I suppose we won’t use the Kalashnikov anymore,” he said, giving voice to widespread hopes that the decades of civil war in Ethiopia were finally over.

But Meles spoke too soon. Within 24 hours his soldiers, who had just taken over the capital of Addis Ababa, were again firing their guns. This time they battled not government forces but thousands of civilians who had taken to the streets to protest the sudden ascendancy of Meles’ maverick band. It was a curious reaction, considering that Meles’ troops had deposed Mengistu Haile Mariam, the onetime lieutenant colonel who had ruled Ethiopia for 14 bloody years. The demonstrations and crackdowns left at least 10 dead and an additional 400 wounded.

To be fair, it could have been worse, as it has been elsewhere. The recent fall of governments in Liberia and Somalia invited spasms of bloodletting that make the tumult in Ethiopia look like a tiff between friends. Still, the unrest in Addis Ababa laid bare the factional divisions that continue to plague Ethiopia, a country that has 70 ethnic groups and at least as many different languages. Holding together the country, or what remains of it, will be as daunting a task for the new regime as it was for the fallen one.

The Democratic Front’s saunter into Addis Ababa was not really part of anyone’s plan, including the rebels’. Early last week the organization — along with guerrilla groups representing Eritrean and Oromo rebels — met with officials of the teetering central government for U.S.-brokered peace talks in London. The negotiations were made urgent by rebel pushes that put the Democratic Front just outside the capital and the Eritreans in command of all of Eritrea province. These advances prompted Mengistu to flee to Zimbabwe two weeks ago. After just a day, the parties were on the verge of agreeing to a cease-fire and a broadly based provisional government that would prepare the country for free elections.

But before the deal could be signed and implemented, the regime of Mengistu’s handpicked successor, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, imploded. Government troops turned on one another. Soldiers wantonly looted state property. Desperate, Tesfaye summoned Robert Houdek, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Addis Ababa, to tell him he could no longer control the situation. The interim Ethiopian leader promised he would issue a unilateral cease-fire and tell the people of the capital to welcome the rebels into the city.

Tesfaye never followed through on his second pledge, but he did proclaim a cease-fire before seeking asylum at the Italian embassy. At that point, Herman Cohen, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, announced in London that the U.S. was “recommending” that the Democratic Front enter Addis Ababa quickly “to stabilize the situation.” The front obliged.

Cohen’s encouragement of the group’s takeover made the U.S. the target of much of the animosity vented in Addis Ababa last week. Expecting to get a negotiated coalition government, many residents were furious to get instead a junta composed only of the Democratic Front. Resentments were further aggravated when Cohen announced that Washington supported the Eritreans’ right to self-determination. Mobs marched to the gates of the U.S. embassy, shouting anti-American slogans and hurling stones into the compound. Protesters dubbed the change of government “Cohen’s coup.”

Opposition to the Democratic Front is rooted in part in the eccentric politics of the group, which is an umbrella organization of resistance factions dominated by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front. Originally rigid Marxists, the Tigrean fighters have proclaimed themselves converts to pluralism and the free market, as have the Eritreans, who also once claimed allegiance to a quasi-socialism. But the policy statements of the Democratic Front, formed in 1988, still contain hints of old orthodoxy. Moreover, the moves the organization has made toward moderation are largely unknown to the citizens of Addis Ababa, who still tend to think of the Tigrean-led front as a group that out-Marxed Mengistu, whose own policies left the population impoverished.

Ethnic tension was a central element of the trouble in Addis Ababa. The central government, like the capital itself, has long been dominated by the Amhara people, who consider themselves the most sophisticated of the Ethiopians and therefore the country’s rightful masters. The Tigreans speak a different language and stem from a region hundreds of miles north of the capital. They have been rivals of the Amharas for two millenniums, going back to a time when the capital of ancient Ethiopia was Aksum, in the heart of Tigre country. When the Democratic Front arrived in Addis Ababa, hundreds of people flooded into the streets simply to stare in wonder at these strange Tigreans, these “bandits” and “barbarians” Mengistu had warned about for years.

The newcomers are saying many of the right things, promising, for instance, that there will be no indiscriminate reprisals against members of the former regime. Meles said in London that only those who committed “war crimes and things like that” would be punished and that they would be tried in the open, with international human rights groups invited to observe. Some excesses are nonetheless inevitable. According to diplomats, Tigrean soldiers have already summarily executed a few of Mengistu’s aides.

Still, the Tigreans, as well as the Eritreans, have a better record of respecting human rights and democratic principles than Mengistu did. In the areas the rebels have administered since before Mengistu’s fall, democracy exists at the village level, based on people’s councils that seem to be freely elected. Political debates are lively, and medical and educational systems are better than most of those offered by the central government.

In any case, the Tigreans say they do not intend to rule Addis Ababa indefinitely. Under terms worked out in London, a wide spectrum of Ethiopians are to meet again by July 1 to construct a more broadly based government that would lead the country until multiparty elections are held within the next 12 months.

The Eritrean leaders, however, have no interest in Ethiopia’s governance but simply want to break away from the country. Established as an Italian colony in 1890, Eritrea expected nationhood after World War II but was instead federated with Ethiopia in 1952 at the recommendation of the United Nations. In 1962 the Eritrean parliament voted for full unification amid reports of bribery and intimidation of its members by the government of Emperor Haile Selassie.

In the weeks before Mengistu fled, when the Americans were trying to persuade him that the country would not unravel if he stepped down, the Eritreans said they were willing to postpone their independence vote, perhaps for several years. But once victory was secured, they wasted no time asserting their secessionist agenda. In a press conference last week, Issaias Afewerki, leader of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, stated baldly, “Eritrea is not part of Ethiopia.” He added that his group would administer the province until a vote on Eritrea’s status is held, a plebiscite the front is convinced will endorse secession.

Many non-Eritreans oppose the province’s independence for economic as well as nationalistic reasons. Without Eritrea, with its long Red Sea coast, Ethiopia would be landlocked. International food aid, essential in combating famine when the rains fail, enters the country primarily through the Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab. The Eritreans have pledged that they will permit goods to flow freely through their territory, but many Ethiopians wonder whether they can trust such promises from a group that has fought Addis Ababa for three decades.

For now, the Democratic Front’s position on Eritrea is much like Washington’s: it endorses the right of the Eritreans to their referendum but wants a unified Ethiopia and so hopes that the vote, if held, goes against secession. As the day of reckoning approaches, tensions between the two groups may erupt. Already, there are strains between Meles and Issaias, who have been friends for 16 years. Issaias is upset that Meles succumbed to U.S. pressure to promise elections within a year. Meles is angry that Issaias reneged on his original pledge to participate in the transitional government to be established by July 1.

Then there is the problem of the Oromos, who form the largest group of all in Ethiopia. The Oromo Liberation Front was annoyed that while the Tigreans marched into the capital, they were left on the sidelines. Though the front, with only 7,000 fighters, is militarily insignificant, the Oromo constitute 40% of the country’s 51 million people. The Oromo rebels are pressing their demands for a referendum on either autonomy or independence for the southern provinces, their heartland. That call has done nothing to ease long-standing suspicions between the Oromo and Tigrean groups, who have clashed in the past.

Given the disparate agendas of all the factions, the prospects for putting together an enduring government within a month are slight. The chances that Ethiopia will then proceed to build a true democracy are slimmer still. The country has no history of democracy, and the forces that now espouse it are only recent converts. While the factions in authority today may prove more progressive and able than the antiquated regime they replaced, peace and democracy remain distant goals. The Kalashnikov is sure to have its place in Ethiopia for some time to come.