Category: Opinion

Recalibrating Lefort’s Article

It is with great interest that I have read René Lefort’s analysis and prognosis of the political situation of Ethiopia in an article titled “A flicker in the Gloom.” There is no doubt that the recent bloody disturbances have not…
The case for an independent commission

The official narrative on the motive and the exact nature of the assassinations of the president of the Amhara regional state and the country’s army chief of staff in an alleged local coup attempt has not convinced everyone. In order…
The Price of complacency

A shocked public has been grasping for answers to what could have driven Saturday’s appalling attacks in Amhara’s regional capital of Bahir Dar and in Addis Ababa. All sorts of rumours are flying, some of which continue to be believed…
Don’t call it a coup

The chief of staff of Ethiopia’s army, the president of Amhara region and two other senior officials, another retired general have been shot dead over two separate attacks in what the prime minister’s office branded as “an orchestrated coup attempt.”…

The campaign for Sidama autonomy, which has been going on for some years, gained momentum when the Zone Administration in Hawassa voted for statehood a year ago.  However, the tactics employed by the elites to exert pressure for the cause…
What has patience got to do with it?

Government need to demonstrate that it doesn’t tolerate wrong doing   The response Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gives to the question why his administration has failed to ensure a rule of law is most perplexing and also riddled with a…
Assessing the One Year of Abiy’s Premiership

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx) That in the…
Charisma: Is it a Path for Ethiopia?

Thanks to a friend, I recently read an article written by Andreas Eshete and Samuel Assefa for a conference held in Addis Ababa and titled “Reflections on Expanding Ethiopia’s Democratic Space”. The article takes note of Ethiopia’s turn toward a…