From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Wed Jun 10 2009 - 17:22:30 EDT
THE INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER N°1262
23/05/2009
ETHIOPIA
The EPRDF’s many weak spots
With only a year to go until the general election that could replace
Meles Zenawi in the post of Prime Minister, the Ethiopian government is
still bogged down by serious security problems. In addition to sporadic
activity by OLF and ONLF rebels that the army has not been able to
completely bring to an end, the situation has also worsened in the Afar
region.
To that must be added the growing discontent in the Amhara community.
Darkening the picture still further, radical Islamists are once again
going on the offensive in neighbouring Somalia.
Repeated incidents in the Afar region. In mid-April, William C. Athens,
the head of the Afar Exploration Co, an oil company based in Tulsa
(USA), decided to suspend the seismic study his firm was carrying out on
its block in the north of Ethiopia, until security is re-established in
this zone.
Previously, several people had been killed or wounded when their
vehicles had hit land mines in the Afar Regional State near Eritrea. The
first incident took place on 10 April, about 80 km north-west of Lake
Afdera in the Danakil depression.
An American geologist working for Mobil / Exxon, Douglas Gratwick was
injured while touring the Erta Ale volcano with a friend. Two or three
Ethiopians (the driver and bodyguards) were killed.
Two other vehicles were blown up by mines on13 April, south of Lake
Afdera and the Chinese driver of one of them was killed. This second
attack, also attributed to Eritrean backed Afar rebels from Ethiopia,
targeted Chinese workers who were building the Samara-Afdera road, not
far from the volcano Erta Ale (ION 1261).
William Athens sent a report on the first incident to Ethiopian Ministry
of Mines, calling for a military escort or for the Ethiopian army to
secure the road. But none of this has been done.
Amharas in the line of sites.Amhara discontent is an old problem that
took on new heights when certain Amhara National Democratic Movement
(ANDM) dignitaries such as the Minister Tefera Walwa began to challenge
the supremacy of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the
EPRDF governing coalition. Some ANDM Activists then even demanded the
resignation of Bereket Simon and Addisu Legesse, Meles Zenawi's two
Amhara lieutenants.
This resentment has created a breeding ground for opposition groups
seeking to recruit supporters from within the ANDM, bringing the
President of the Amhara Regional State, Ayalew Gobezie to carry out a
veritable purge.
In addition, many officers or Amhara civilians that have just been
arrested for their alleged links with the opposition group Ginbot 7 led
by Berhanu Nega which advocates armed struggle against the Ethiopian
government, are, or have been executives of the ANDM or its ancestor
EPDM, starting with General Tefera Mamo (ION 1261).
General Asaminew Tsige, who had been dismissed from the Air Force at the
same time as General Alemshet Degife (Oromo), is one of those arrested,
as were his wife, a nurse in a military hospital and the Lieutenant
Colonel Demisew former head of the security department of the Amhara
Regional State.
The wife of the Minister Tefera Walwa was also briefly arrested because
she was the sister of Andargatchew Tsige, the Ginbot 7 number two.
The threat from Somalian Islamists.
Two and a half years after the Ethiopian military intervention in
Somalia to drive the supporters of the Islamic Court Union (ICU) out of
power, the situation is of concern in the peripheral parts of Ethiopia,
near the Somalian border.
In January 2009, Ethiopian troops left Mogadishu, making way for a
"moderate" faction of the ICU they had nevertheless ousted in December
2006. Despite his decision to introduce Sharia law in Mogadishu, the
Somalian president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is still considered too
moderate by the Al Shahab and Hizbul Islam radical Islamists who are
trying to wrest power from him.
As far as the EPRDF is concerned, this is a kind of back to square one.
The same causes have the same effects. The Ethiopian army could again
take up in Somalia to secure the border between the two countries and
prevent the expansion of Somalian Islamic theses in Southern Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, Eritrean President Issayas Afeworki who is no stranger to
this tragic imbroglio is rubbing his hands in Asmara.
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