Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned last week following anti-government protests. A state of emergency has since been imposed on the country.
Ethiopia is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, having achieved double-digit gross domestic product growth in recent years. China provides much of Ethiopia’s foreign direct investment, and the east African country is a linchpin of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure scheme.
Security measures are taken as the Oromo people protest against government during the Irreecha holiday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on October 2, 2016.
Ethiopia is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and a hub for Chinese investment, having rejuvenated its fortunes after a turbulent history marred by civil war and famine.
But, the East African nation’s political story is murkier. Given the surprise resignation of its prime minister and the declaration of a state of emergency last week following protests, CNBC takes a closer look at this major frontier market.
Set up for political failure
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned on February 15 following mass protests. A six-month long state of emergency was imposed by the government the next day, with the intention of quelling civil unrest.
The state of emergency prohibits, among other things, the distribution of potentially sensitive material and unauthorized demonstrations or meetings.
Hailemariam remains in office until a new prime minister is appointed.
Ethiopia is, in essence, a one party state led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition comprising of parties representing different regions of the country.
Tension has been bristling between the powerful Tigray People’s Liberation front, which represents just 6 percent of Ethiopians, and its counterparts representing the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups. Meanwhile, Hailemariam’s party, the Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement, is the weakest in the coalition.
Zacharias Abubuker | AFP | Getty Images
People protest against the Ethiopian government during Irreecha, the annual Oromo festival which celebrates the end of the rainy season, in Bishoftu on October 1, 2017.
Hailemariam, who took power after the death of his predecessor Meles Zenawi in 2012, has failed to unite his party. The former leader headed up a centralized government and wielded prestige from the country’s civil war to ensure loyalty.
Anti-government protests have bubbled up, most recently in 2016 when the country’s last state of emergency was imposed.
“It is unlikely (Hailemariam’s) successor will adopt a more reformist stance,” Emma Gordon, senior East Africa politics analyst at consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC via email. “Protests and political uncertainty will therefore continue.”
Sky-rocketing economic growth
The potential for new leadership in Ethiopia is little more than a band aid.
“The factors that have driven the protests — namely the ethnic federal system, the influence of the military and intelligence services, and the interplay between the political elites and the business sector — will remain in place,” Gordon said.
Ethiopia, one of the least developed economies in the world, has achieved double-digit growth in recent years. Should its incoming prime minister placate ethnic tensions along party lines — leading to the lifting of the state of emergency within six months — this could continue.
“Assuming (a) more benign political outcome, we expect economic growth to remain healthy, albeit below the 11 percent annual expansion targeted by the government’s Growth and Transformation Plan,” Jane Morley, regional manager for the Middle East and Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC via email.
Thomas Peter | Getty Images
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the Great Hall of the People on May 12, 2017, in Beijing, China.
The plan includes investing $20 billion in the power sector, and boosting the number of tourists visiting the country to 2.5 million annually.
Morley placed the expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth figure at 7-7.5 percent annually over the next five years, thanks to “growing consumer markets, greater integration into global and regional value chains and continued infrastructure investment.”
Belt and Road linchpin
Ethiopia is a key partner of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive infrastructure spending push to resurrect ancient trading routes centred on China. This is partly because of its strategic location neighboring the tiny port state Djibouti, at which China has a naval base. A maritime presence in the region enables access to European markets via the Suez Canal.
Ethiopia is also attractive because of its low cost labor, transport links and a vast consumer market — with its population of over 100 million making it Africa’s second largest.
Although foreign direct investment (FDI) to Ethiopia has been hampered by unrest in recent years, this remains on an upwards trajectory. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Ethiopia attracted $4.2 billion in the fiscal year of 2016-17.
Morley said: “This is partly because large amounts of FDI is Chinese, going into industrial parks, and concerns about human rights and repression have proved less of a deterrent than might be the case with some Western states.”
Thousands of Ethiopians have been attracted to Saudi Arabia by the job opportunities
Ethiopia says more than 1,300 citizens have been expelled from Saudi Arabia in “recent days” after a warning for undocumented migrants to voluntarily leave the Gulf nation expired.
The foreign ministry’s statement late Tuesday came after Saudi officials began a crackdown against undocumented migrants, including tens of thousands of Ethiopians.
“The government is working with Saudi Arabia to safely return our citizens home,” the ministry’s director general of diaspora affairs, Demeke Atinafu, told the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate.
Ethiopian officials have said more than 70,000 people have returned home since Saudi Arabia in March ordered all undocumented migrants to leave. The order was later extended until June but the majority of migrants remained. Those who don’t leave face forced deportation and a range of fines.
More than 400,000 Ethiopian migrants are estimated to live in Saudi Arabia, most working as domestic workers and farm workers.
Most Ethiopian migrant workers enter Saudi Arabia illegally through neighboring Yemen and send home money which, in many cases, is the only means for relatives to get by. Human Rights Watch has estimated that Ethiopian migrants globally sent home more than $4 billion in 2015.
“In many other countries, these Ethiopians could claim asylum and potentially be entitled to international protection,” the rights group said of the migrants in Saudi Arabia. “The problem is, Saudi has no refugee law and no asylum system.”
Violence between ethnic groups has put the country on edge
FOR centuries the city of Harar, on the eastern fringes of the Ethiopian highlands, was a sanctuary, its people protected by a great wall that surrounded the entire city. But in the late 19th century it was finally annexed by the Ethiopian empire. Harar regained a bit of independence in 1995, when the area around it became the smallest of Ethiopia’s nine ethnically based, semi-autonomous regions. Today it is relatively peaceful and prosperous—and, since last month, a sanctuary once more.
In recent weeks thousands of Ethiopians have poured into areas around Harar, fleeing violence in neighbouring towns (see map). Nearly 70,000 people have sought shelter just east of the city. Several thousand more are huddling in a makeshift camp in the west. Most are Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Its members clashed with ethnic Somalis in February and March, resulting in the death of hundreds. The violence erupted again in September, when more than 30 people were killed in the town of Awaday. Revenge killings, often by local militias or police, have followed, pushing the death toll still higher. In response, the government has sent in the army.
Ethnic violence is common in Ethiopia, especially between Oromos and Somalis, whose vast regions share the country’s longest internal border. Since the introduction of ethnic federalism in 1995, both groups have tried to grab land and resources from each other, often with the backing of local politicians. A referendum in 2004 that was meant to define the border failed to settle the matter. A peace agreement signed by the two regional presidents in April was no more successful.
When the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) swept to power in 1991 after a bloody 15-year civil war, federalism was seen as a way to placate the ethnic liberation movements that helped it to power. The previous regime had been dominated by the Amhara, the second-largest ethnic group (the Eritreans broke away to form a new state). Eventually ethnic loyalties would wither as people grew richer, went the thinking of the Marxist-inspired EPRDF.
But the way federalism was implemented caused problems from the start. New identity cards forced people to choose an ethnicity, though many Ethiopians are of mixed heritage. Territories often made little sense. In the Harari region, a minority of Hararis rule over much bigger populations of Oromos and Amharas, a source of resentment. Boundaries that were once porous became fixed, leading to disputes.
For years the EPRDF sought to dampen the tension by tightly controlling regional politics. But its grip has loosened over time. Local governments have grown stronger. Regional politicians are increasingly pushing ethnic agendas. The leaders of Oromia, the largest region, have drafted a bill demanding changes to the name, administration and official language of Addis Ababa, the capital, which has a special status but sits within Oromia. They have stoked ethnic nationalism and accused other groups of conspiring to oppress the Oromo.
Politicians in the Somali region are no more constructive. They have turned a blind eye to abuses by local militias and a controversial paramilitary group known as the Liyu. The region’s president “has a fairly consistent expansionist agenda”, says a Western diplomat. “He may have spied an opportunity.” The federal government, now dominated by the Tigrayan ethnic group, was rocked by a wave of protests last year by the Oromo and other frustrated groups.
Many complain that the rulers in Addis Ababa are doing too little. They have been slow to respond to the recent violence, fuelling suspicions that they were complicit. “We are victims of the federal government,” shouts Mustafa Muhammad Yusuf, an Oromo elder sheltering in Harar. “Why doesn’t it solve this problem?”
Federalism may have seemed the only option when it was introduced in 1995. But some now suggest softening its ethnic aspect. “In the past the emphasis was too much on ethnic diversity at the expense of unity,” says Christophe Van der Beken, a professor at the Ethiopian Civil Service University. “The challenge now is to bring the latter back.”
A former land administrator in the Amhara region says the recent pact signed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) has illegally transferred several villages to the Tigray region.
The land administration expert who wish to remain anonymous told ESAT that two areas – Gichew and Gobe – that were historically Amhara were given to Tigray against the will of the people. He said the TPLF regime had illegally annexed the Wolkait and Tegede and other agriculturally fertile regions to Tigray and the recent pact gave more areas to the Tigray region against the will of the Amhara people.
The expert recalled a referendum ten years ago in Gichew that was monitored by the House of the Federation in which the people voted to remain in the Amhara region. The expert said the result of that referendum has never seen the light of day.
The former land administrator told ESAT that the TPLF had settled thousands of people from Tigray into the Amhara territory in the last two decades to deliberately change the demographics of the region.
The Wolkait and Tegede regions that were forcefully annexed to Tigray was the cause of the protest last summer in Gondar and Bahir Dar where TPLF forces killed at least two hundred in the two northern cities.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said an executive member of the Front, Abdikarin Sheikh Muse, who was handed over to Ethiopia last week was not a terrorist as described by the cabinet of the Somali government.
Hassan Abdulahi, a senior member and spokesperson of the ONLF, was responding to statementents by the Somali government spokesperson that Sheikh Muse was a terrorist and his extradition to the Ethiopian regime was “a legal step taken to remove a security threat.”
Abdulahi told ESAT that there is no extradition agreement between the two countries and the statement coming out of the Somali Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman was a text prepared by an operative of the Ethiopian regime in Somalia known by the name General Gabre.
Abdulahi further said that the parliament not the cabinet had the power to decide on such matters. He said he had information that Parliament will convene Saturday to deliberate on the issue.
Somalis both at home and abroad denounce the government of Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo for handing over Sheikh Muse to the Ethiopian regime. Farmajo won the election running on the platform of restoring the sovereignty of Somalia and stop meddling by the TPLF in the affairs of the country. Somalis believe the President had broken his promise by handing over Sheikh Muse to the TPLF.
Somalis in Mogadishu and Kenya took to the street to denounce the extradition of Abdikarin Sheikh Muse, also known as Qalbi-Dhagax. Asked why Somalis care if Sheik Muse is an ONLF that is fighting the Ethiopian regime, Abdulahi responded “Somalis are one people regardless of where they live.”
The Ethiopian regime says Abdikarin Sheikh Muse surrendered at his will.
The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People Region or Kilil is home to fifty-four different ethnic groups. The Konso people’s demand has unleashed acts of terror by Ethiopian government security forces.
Many including teachers and civil servants have abandoned their homes and are in hiding. The regime is using such harsh methods as closing flour mills, shutting off water service and closing of health clinics. Security forces use beatings and mass jailing to terrorize the Konso people.
There is only one hospital functioning while all eleven health centers are shut down by the Ethiopian security. Out of one hundred sixty four Konso Police officers only eleven are on duty.
Tensae Radio reported there are over two hundred fifty in the local jail with four hundred detained in the college campus and with thousand more in different localities.
