Ethiopia has buried its top regional officials in Bahir Dar, its chief of the army staff and another general in Mekele and the alleged coup leader in Lalibela. This was the first time the country has lost such large number of officials and generals at one time since the failed coup d’état against Mengistu Hailemariam in 1989.
In the wake of this incident, the government rounded up around 212 suspects that it says were involved in the ‘coup or takeover of state power’ attempt in the Amhara region and 43 others in Addis Ababa, according to official figures. The arrests included members of the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA), activists affiliated with Baladera Council, a group opposed to what it saw as the dominance of the Oromo in Addis Ababa and even journalists, sparking fear that the government might be using the incident as pretext to launch purges of rivals from the Amhara people who were perceived to be a threat to the administration and to keep NAMA off the ballot in the coming election.
The underlying intention for the twin attack in Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa in which three regional officials were killed and the army chief and a retired general were killed, whether they were part of the same plot remains uncertain. Government officials previously said they were connected but later said a further investigation was required to find out whether that is indeed the case. However, the government has been consistent in its claim that it has put down an attempt at a military coup, a claim that remains contested by many who suggest it might have been low-scaled and unplanned violence. Beyond the dispute, many agree that the incident revealed the vulnerability of the system to domestic power conflict and ethnic competition.
Crackdown against suspects, concerns
The government’s crackdown on suspects has been hailed by some as sending a long-overdue message in the face of lawlessness and erosion of order. “The government should have taken measures beforehand. The first task of the state should be ensuring the rule of law and order. The political game comes later,” said Yeshiwas Assefa, chairperson of the newly formed Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice.
However, there is a widespread feeling that the Amhara would be a target of the crackdown. Major Dawit Wolde Giorgis, currently head of the Namibia-based the Africa Institute for Strategic and Security Studies, published a statement with some strong words, saying that “Though Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) claim to have buried Amhara, broken its spine so that it won’t ever recover,
‘A government job’
A conspiracy theory surfaced online which persists that the federal government was complicit in the killings in Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa and the ‘alleged ringleader of the coup’, Asamnew, who was killed in a shoot-out, was innocent of the charges that were thrown at him. Certain segments used his death as the occasion for mourning, making him a hero to the Amhara people as the spokesman of their sufferings and aspirations. His funeral processions in Lalibela attended by relatively large crowd has been a sign of that.
This state of affairs and the persistence of the conspiracy theory has irritated the Amhara region officials, prompting them to go great lengths to explain themselves. Asemahagh Aseres, a regional government spokesman, spoke in length how he himself was detained by the militia when it took over a guesthouse for government officials. Other officials spoke on record did the same, giving more or less consistent account. A few days later after the event, the Amhara Mass Media agency has released a recording of a phone conversation between Asamnew Tsgie and the head of the Amhara Mass Media Agency, in which the former was heard saying measures have been taken against the regional leaders. Even this fell on a partisan ears. Not only anonymous social media activists but journalists such as Habtamu Ayalew, the former ESAT journalist who is now raising money on GoFundMe to establish a new media house, are strongly contesting the authenticity of the recording. However, that doesn’t mean there’s any evidence for the more outlandish theories about the event.
Division and fructure
Observers say part of the reason for the persistence of such conspiracy theories is deep division and fracture that is marking Ethiopia politics. There is especially fear that the alliance between the Amhara and Oromo wings of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that ousted the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) would breakdown.
Belay Manaye, a journalist and an online activist, says the government should allow an independent investigation to clear things. “It’s fishy that federal government rushed to call Asaminew “ringleader of the alleged coup”,” he told Ethiopia Observer. However, some say it is not sure that would help to bury the conspiracy theory. Mohammed Girma, a scholar and the author of Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia wrote on its Twitter feed that the call for an investigation might be the right thing to do. “However, with a dramatic trust deficit in current Ethiopia, “independence” seems to be a distant notion that only exists in some fictitious realm.”
The International Crisis Group (ICG) reminded authorities of the need for “a concerted effort to counter damaging rumours”, and release evidence it has linking the Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa attacks “in order to quell speculation.”
In the fragile country in need of good will and wisdom, if common sense prevails, the politically charged and baseless rhetoric could die away. But if it persists it is clear that this will create resistance to change and compromise, making the road to national reconciliation a bumpy one.
Image: Reuters
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