with AFP
ETHIOPIA
The Ethiopian government has imposed restrictions on three major cities in the country’s Amhara region, including the most populous, Gondar, in the wake of protests against the dismantling of regional military forces across Ethiopia.
According to almost identical communiqués issued by the municipal authorities of Gondar, Dessie and Debre Birhan, the restrictions are issued by the military “command posts” in each town, suggesting that security there is now in the hands of the federal army.
The federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed recently announced that it had begun the process of reassigning members of the military forces that have been gradually built up over the past 15 years by some regional states to the federal army or the police.
Called “special forces” in Ethiopia, these unconstitutional military units were tolerated until now.
Incidents have occurred in Amhara, where the “special forces” are powerful and provided crucial assistance to the federal army during its conflict against the rebel authorities in the Tigray region between late 2020 and late 2022.
In the three cities, motorised tricycles are now banned from travelling at night and bars and discos must close at 9pm. Strikes are prohibited and all meetings must be reported to the authorities.
It is also forbidden to carry a weapon or any object that can be used as a weapon – “knife, machete or iron bar” in particular -, to set off firecrackers and fireworks, or to wear any military clothing.
Members of the “special forces” are also ordered to assemble in designated areas.
– Ethnic bases” –
According to a Gondar resident contacted by AFP on Sunday, many demonstrators protested there, shouting “Abiy, traitor!” or “We won’t give in!” against the disarmament of the Amhara “special forces”, whose access is currently forbidden to journalists “for security reasons”. Other towns in the region were the scene of demonstrations.
On the same day, Mr Abiy assured that the process would be completed “whatever the cost” and warned that “the law will be applied against those who deliberately play a destabilising role”.
Ethiopia’s second largest people, the Amhara have long been its political and economic elite and Gondar is a former imperial capital.
The peace agreement signed in November 2022 between the federal government and the Tigrayan authorities has aroused strong discontent within the Amhara community, which has been involved in territorial disputes with the Tigrayans for decades.
The Amhara have also been involved in sometimes bloody territorial disputes with the Oromo, Ethiopia’s most numerous people.
On Saturday, General Abebaw Tadesse, deputy chief of staff of the federal army, condemned “special forces” formed on an ethnic basis to the detriment of national sentiment” and assured that at the end of the process “no region would have more (military) power than another.
Ethiopia’s constitution provides that the 11 federated states, delineated along linguistic and cultural lines in a country of more than 80 peoples, have their own police, but no military forces.
On Monday, Mr Abiy’s Prosperity Party reiterated that reports that the ongoing process “is only for the Amhara region are completely false” and that it “will be implemented simultaneously in all regions”.
Fighting has stopped in Tigray, but Ethiopia remains the scene of local conflicts, often linked to the revival of identity and land claims since Mr Abiy’s appointment in 2018, after three decades of rule by a coalition dominated by the Tigrayan minority.
Source : Africa News 04/11/2023