The American newspaper "New York Times" sheds light on the strategy by which the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abi Ahmed, plunged his country into a civil war that led to atrocities and famines, while he denies committing massacres and genocide against his people, specifically the people of the Tigray region. He considers the general elections to be held for the first time in his tenure as "free and fair."
With the outbreak of war in northern Ethiopia, and the Tigray region steadily heading for the worst famine in decades, a senior US envoy arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last month, hoping to persuade Abi Ahmed to get his country out of the whirlpool, the newspaper said in a lengthy report published on its website. A ruin that many fear might tear it apart.
But it seems that Abi Ahmed used the visit for his own ends. He took his American guest, the Biden administration's envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey D. Feltman, on a four-hour impromptu tour of Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian prime minister led him through smart new city parks and a renovated central plaza, even taking him unexpectedly to a wedding where the two men posed for pictures with the bride and groom.
Abiy's attempt to exploit the visit from its primary purpose to highlight Ethiopia's economic progress in order to confuse internal divisions is the latest evidence of his turbulent approach that has so baffled international observers that they are now asking themselves how they misunderstood it so much.
Crash aura abi ahmed
Not long ago, Abiy, facing the biggest electoral test in a long-awaited parliamentary election, was the example of "a shining hope" for Ethiopia and the African continent as a whole. After coming to power in 2018, he embarked on a series of ambitious reforms: releasing political prisoners, welcoming exiles from abroad and, most impressively, concluding a historic peace agreement with Eritrea, Ethiopia's longtime enemy, within months.
Which dazzled the West eager for a brilliant success story in Africa. Within 18 months, Abe, a former intelligence officer, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, in just 9 months, Abiy's aura has been shattered, and the civil war that broke out last November in the northern Tigray region has become an example of atrocities against Ethiopian citizens.
Abe's forces were accused of massacres, sexual assaults and ethnic cleansing. Last week, a senior UN official said that Tigray was suffering from the scourge of famine, the worst in the world since 250,000 people died in famine in Somalia a decade ago, he said.
Elsewhere in Ethiopia, ethnic violence has claimed hundreds of lives and forced two million people to flee their homes. A deep border dispute with Sudan turned into a major military confrontation.
Try a distraction
Even Monday's elections, once billed as "the country's first free vote" and "a chance to turn the page on decades of authoritarian rule," exposed divisions and raised grim fears that Ethiopia's own future was in doubt.
“This election is a distraction,” said Abadir Ibrahim, associate professor of law at Addis Ababa University. “The country is on the edge, and it is not clear if it can back down. We just need to get through this election so we can focus on avoiding a disaster.”
The newspaper said it tried to obtain comment and request an interview from the Ethiopian Prime Minister's office and requested an interview, but he did not respond.
The "Prosperity" party - Abe's party formed in 2019 from the remnants of a former ruling coalition - is widely expected to win the election easily. But only 102 out of 547 constituencies in Ethiopia voted due to war, civil unrest and logistical failure.
Senior prison opposition leaders and their parties boycotted the vote in Oromia, a sprawling region of 40 million more populous than Kenya.
American pressure
The New York Times saw that Abiy Ahmed tried to downplay the problems his country was going through, repeatedly describing the Tigray conflict as a "law and order process" and advancing his vision of a modern, economically vibrant Ethiopia. But America, which gave Ethiopia $1 billion in aid last year, is pressing him to shift focus immediately.
After Abe, as a driver, took him around Addis Ababa in May, the US envoy Feltman wrote a detailed analysis of his trip for President Joe Biden and other leaders in Washington, even noting a sudden movement of the car caused some coffee to spill on the envoy's shirt.
Weeks later, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken imposed a visa ban on unnamed Ethiopian officials.
Other foreigners also expressed concern about ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia. Beka Haavisto, the EU envoy who visited the country in February, told the European Parliament last week that Ethiopian leaders told him "they will destroy the Tigray people, exterminate them for a hundred years".
On the other hand, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Haavisto's statements, describing them as "ridiculous" and "a hallucination of some kind."
Global condemnation
The newspaper considered that the global condemnation of Abe, 44, recently at the G7 summit last week, represented a "staggering retreat" for a young leader who until recently was celebrated globally.
The downward spiral of reforms he began after he was appointed prime minister in April 2018 was a sharp rebuke to the Tigray People's Liberation Front, a party of rebel-turned-rulers that has dominated Ethiopia since 1991 in an authoritarian regime that has delivered impressive economic growth at the expense of basic civil rights.
Abiy promised a new policy, allowed previously banned opposition parties, appointed women to half of the positions in his cabinet, and made peace with Eritrea, which prompted him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Back to the old rules of the game
But he quickly unleashed pent-up frustrations among ethnic groups that had been marginalized from power for decades, most notably his own, the Oromo, who make up a third of Ethiopia's 110 million people.
When mass protests broke out, he reverted to the old rules of the game: arrests, repression and police brutality.
At the same time, tensions rose with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which resented Abe's vaunted reforms.
By early November, news reached Washington that war was looming in Tigray. Senator Chris Coons, who has a longstanding interest in Africa, called Abe to warn him of the dangers of resorting to military force.
Koons, a Delaware Democrat, said he reminded the Ethiopian leader that the American Civil War and World War I began with promises of quick military victory, lasted for years and cost millions of lives.
Koons said Abe was not deterred: "He was confident it would be over in 6 weeks." Days later, on the eve of the US presidential election, fighting broke out in Tigray, according to the New York Times.
"Destined" ascent
Abe has given few media interviews, but people who have dealt with him describe him as a "confident man", brimming with "Christian faith" evident in his frequently expressed belief that his rise to power was predestined.
Abe told the New York Times in 2018, that when he was seven his mother whispered in his ear that he was "unique" and predicted he would "end up in the mansion".
A former adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was a "Christian faith" guiding Abe as well.
He added that the Ethiopian prime minister is a Pentecostal Christian, a sect whose followers have increased in Ethiopia, and is a firm believer in the "prosperity gospel" - a theology that views material success as a reward from God, noting that it is no coincidence that he is called The party founded by Abe in 2019 is the "Prosperity" party.
Abe's evangelical doctrine has attracted influential supporters in Washington, including Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, who told the Senate in 2018 that he first met Abe at a prayer meeting where he "told the story of his journey and faith in Jesus."
Last month, Inhof traveled to Ethiopia to show his support for Abiy against US sanctions, another important relationship for Abiy with Eritrea's dictatorial leader, Isaias Afwerki, and the United Nations and rights groups have accused Eritrean forces that poured into Tigray to support Abiy's campaign of the worst atrocities in the conflict. Now they are a major factor in the famine in the region.
Eritrea's weapon in Tigray
Mark Lowcock, the UN's top humanitarian official, told the Security Council last week that Eritrean soldiers were "using hunger as a weapon of war" and obstructing aid shipments to the most vulnerable parts of Tigray.
The newspaper pointed out that the Eritrean issue is Abiy's biggest international responsibility. Some analysts say he was manipulated by Isaias, a veteran fighter known for his tough strategic maneuvers. According to other accounts, Abiy had little choice - if the Eritreans suddenly left, he might lose control of Tigray completely.
The elections are likely to highlight the growing challenges in the rest of Ethiopia. In the past month alone, Lowcock said, 400,000 people were forced from their homes in the Amhara and Afar regions. The army took control of several parts of Oromia, where an armed rebellion broke out.
Koons, who was sent by Biden to speak with Abiy in February, warned the Ethiopian leader that an explosion of ethnic hatred could tear the country apart, as the former Yugoslavia did during the 1990s, to which Abiy responded that Ethiopia was "a great nation with a great history," Koons said.
The Source: masrawy.com