Viewpoint: Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi's death could create regional turmoil
By Rashid Abdi Religious editor, Kenya's Daily Nation
22 August 2012 Last updated at 11:27 GMT
The death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has thrown the populous
Horn of Africa giant into a period of deep uncertainty and created a serious
leadership vacuum in the region with profound geopolitical implications.
Concern is mounting about the potential of a vicious power struggle in Addis
Ababa, triggering a negative chain reaction across the region.
For many of Ethiopia's Horn allies, the death has come at an awkward moment,
not least because a delicate political transition in Somalia is incomplete
and under serious strain, and a stand-off between South Sudan and Sudan
risks dragging the region into a new armed conflagration.
Mr Meles was a complex figure, hard to pigeon-hole, much less force into a
one-dimensional portrait frame.
A mystique has over the years grown around his personality and politics,
making the task to objectively assess his legacy difficult and highly
fraught.
To use a Churchillian phrase, the man was a riddle and a mystery inside an
enigma, and by extension so too the secretive state he presided over.
But he was the one African leader who was impossible to ignore.
'Increasingly intolerant'
The diminutive ex-guerilla leader was a towering figure whose austere,
unsmiling and understated public persona often belied his great influence
and charisma.
Since 1991 he has been the undisputed and pre-eminent key player in the Horn
- a formidable strategist whose role remained indispensable in the regional
efforts to resolve deadly conflicts and contain militant Islamism.
Domestically, his legacy is contested. To his ardent fans, he was a true
revolutionary impelled by a great sense of mission to overturn the residual
feudal and Stalinist structures of the ancient regime.
He was the outsider whose genius led to the overthrow of an entrenched and
deeply loathed dictatorship.
His message of social justice and modernisation resonated with many in the
homeland, especially the marginalised "lowlanders" in Oromia and Ogadenia.
His concept of revolutionary democracy and ethnic federalism promised to
create a fairer and inclusive order.
Measured against these lofty and progressive ideals, his record has, at
best, been patchy and rather uninspiring.
The much-vaunted ambitious economic modernisation and liberalisation
programme has created a new middle class, attracted huge foreign investment,
spawned massive infrastructure projects, spurred economic growth and
generally transformed the skylines of the major cities such as Addis Ababa
and Mekele.
But it has not tackled the deep structural and systemic problems and
inefficiencies that have hampered real growth. The Stalinist land tenure
system and the complex bureaucratic system are still intact, and the vast
majority remain trapped in poverty.
The democratisation and political reform process, which Mr Meles himself
termed "work in progress", has long stalled.
Since the disputed May 2005 polls, the regime has increasingly become
intolerant and autocratic, using a raft of new legislation to stifle and
criminalise dissent and lock up opponents.
'Discreet purge'
A plethora of old and new armed ethnic factions continue to wage low-level
insurgencies in the periphery. The new policy of engagement and piecemeal
peace pacts with a select few has so far only succeeded in managing the
problem and buying the regime more time.
Feeling vulnerable and insecure, Mr Meles has in the last few years become a
leader whose overriding domestic political manoeuvres and calculations are
driven by one instinct: regime survival.
He orchestrated a discreet purge of the ruling Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the administration, demoting,
sidelining or reassigning key potential rivals and opponents.
His death has certainly created a leadership vacuum at the top and with no
clear figure groomed to succeed him, the battle for succession could prove
destabilising.
That said, the prospect of a large-scale upheaval, as some fear, is highly
unlikely, partly because the country has a powerful, highly disciplined and
cohesive army and security apparatus.
The opposition can, in theory, capitalise on the disarray within the ruling
party to advance its goals and press for an early poll, but that looks
difficult given the narrow factionalism and disorganisation within its
ranks, not to mention the fact most of the influential opposition figures
are either in exile or locked up.
Mr Meles has continued to enjoy good press in the region and across much of
Africa, even as his stature diminished domestically.
He is hugely admired and many seem prepared to overlook his personal
frailties and forgive his leadership shortcomings for one simple reason: no
other African leader has in recent times deployed such great intellectual
energy and firepower and used his diplomatic talent and influence to
articulate the continent's key priorities and demands at global forums.
He did put Africa on the map, and as a skilled and effective negotiator and
spokesman he certainly forced leaders in the developed world to listen. But
whether this feat alone qualifies him to join the pantheon of the
continent's great visionaries, like Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela,
remains debatable.
Not in contention though is the fact that the late prime minister - almost
single-handedly - transformed Ethiopia from a deeply conflicted and
war-wracked peripheral Horn of Africa state into a supremely self-assured
African diplomatic and military powerhouse.
From the mid-1990s and up until 2005, Ethiopia was a key stop for high-level
Western dignitaries visiting the continent, and Mr Meles the must-see
African leader whose advice and counsel was sought.
Many embraced him as a reformer and an elite member of the so-called "new
breed" of African leaders.
The Ethiopian leader cultivated the new friendship and used it to forge
strategic partnerships to raise his country's profile and advance its
geopolitical and strategic national interests.
He swiftly rebuilt and modernised the army, initially in a bid to achieve
parity with Sudan and negotiate a detente from a position of strength, but
subsequently to "tame" a belligerent Eritrea, with whom relations had began
to dramatically deteriorate a few years after its independence in 1991.
The two countries have since fought two bloody and costly border wars
beginning from 1998. A peace pact and a border arbitration treaty brokered
by international mediators failed to end to conflict permanently, partly
because Addis Ababa refused to fully abide by the terms of the accords and
to return the tiny barren piece of land awarded to Eritrea.
Somali anxieties
Hostilities have continued to simmer ever since, and periodic flare-ups are
common along the volatile border.
It is plausible the death of Mr Meles may - far from creating opportunities
for dialogue - spur Eritrea into escalating the tension.
That would be a disastrous and risky gamble which Eritrea must be dissuaded
from taking. It is unlikely this is a course of action that would help it
secure its perceived legitimate rights, much less win it friends in the
region and beyond.
In Somalia, Ethiopia's military presence in the past year has been
instrumental in putting the pressure on the militant group al-Shabab.
Thousands of Ethiopian troops now control a number of key strategic areas in
south-central Somalia.
The death of Mr Meles has raised new anxieties among the regional allies
with troops in Somalia.
There are growing fears a destabilising succession battle and power struggle
in Addis could potentially complicate matters and jeopardise the whole
mission. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said as much in a recent radio
interview.
Such fears are understandable, considering Ethiopia's history and political
fragility.
However, there is hope too the country has achieved a level of maturity and
that it has the institutional mechanisms and the structural resilience to
weather the current storm and ensure a smooth transition that allows for
policy continuity in Somalia.
Meles Zenawi
Meles Zenawi (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair listen to South
African President Thabo Mbeki address the closing press conference of the
Progressive Governance Summit in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, 12
February 2006
* Emerged from Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which carried
out armed struggle against communist military regime in 1970s and 1980s
* Became president in a transitional government in 1991 and then prime
minister in 1995
* Married another TPLF veteran, Azeb Mesfin, and had three children
* Under his leadership, a closed and secretive country gradually
opened to the outside world
* But reputation tarnished in 2000s amid increasing repression in
Ethiopia
* Why West will miss Meles
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19332646>
* Obituary: Meles Zenawi
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18862906>
* <
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19328627> Life in pictures:
Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Wed Aug 22 2012 - 18:28:48 EDT
