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9 International Monday, December 17, 2018 ‘Nobody will kneel’: Tigrayans defiant; Ethiopian prime minister cracks down PM urges support for ‘reforms, not revolution’ MEKELLE: In the birthplace of the armed struggle that the Oromo, of selective justice. Tigrayans were angered when influence of Tigrayans has diminished under Abiy, they are experiencing ethnic discrimination, and that this has to propelled Ethiopia’s ruling coalition to power 27 years 60 officials, many of them from their region, were detained remain a force to be reckoned with. Decentralized govern- stop,” said Gush Gebreselassie, a 55-year-old civil servant. ago, there is growing anger as the country’s new prime for suspected human rights abuses and corruption, he said. ment has allowed the creation of large regional police Meressa Tsehaye, a political science professor at Mekelle minister stages a crackdown on the region’s once-power- These included senior executives at the army-run METEC forces, including in Tigray. The region also has a history of University, recalled Tigrayans’ sacrifices in the 1980s civil ful leaders. Although the Tigrayans who inhabit these crag- industrial conglomerate. “Abiy controls the international nar- civilians, mostly farmers who own guns, joining militias to war that brought Abiy’s EPRDF to power. gy hills are only a small minority in a country of more than rative but not necessarily the country,” Getachew said. defend the group’s causes. Officials in Mekelle said there He and others said Ethiopians were forgetting the 100 million, they have dominated its power structures was no attempt to build up these regional forces. But achievements delivered by the coalition. Ethiopia’s econo- since 1991 when the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary ‘Backwardness and injustice’ security is a growing concern, as seen at checkpoints my has grown around 10 percent a year for the past Democratic Front (EPRDF) drove a Marxist military Abiy addressed the accusation in a statement on where Tigray police search vehicles and people for decade, according to government statistics. “We won them regime from power. Wednesday, saying: “Just like we don’t blame a forest for weapons before allowing entry to the city. freedom. We brought them electricity. We built them Now many leading Tigrayans are being detained or what a single tree has done, we don’t blame or point our Many Tigrayans said they were worried about a surge roads,” said Fitsum Tekele, a 50-year-old farmer, as he sidelined as reformist prime minister, Abiy Ahmed attempts fingers at any tribe for the crimes individuals committed.” in ethnic violence elsewhere in the country that has forced crouched barefoot in a field outside Mekelle harvesting to draw a line under past abuses. One adviser to Abiy told Abiy too hails from the EPRDF. He served in the military in more than 1 million people to flee their homes since Abiy teff, the staple crop, with a sickle. “If they say they were in Reuters that the prime minister has sacked 160 army gen- Tigray as a teenager and speaks the Tigrinya language. But took office. Although Tigray has been largely unaffected - darkness for 27 years, their minds are not working.” Two erals for actions he said amount to “state terrorism”. In he has taken a wrecking ball to the institutions the ruling unlike other regions, it is not home to significant numbers of his brothers left a car hire business in the Amhara Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region, and in nearby vil- coalition had used to control the country. In a speech last of people from other ethnic groups - residents told region, Fitsum said. “They came home with nothing.” lages, a siege mentality is taking hold among people who month, he said the three years of anti-government protests Reuters that Abiy was not doing enough to stop the Concern was palpable at city coffee stalls, where both say they feel under attack. The frustration could pose a that helped bring him to power in April showed that bloodshed elsewhere. Several said they had family mem- the young and those who survived the war agreed that the threat to the 42-year-old prime minister as he urges peo- Ethiopians no longer tolerate “backwardness and injustice”. bers who abandoned jobs and businesses to return to region would not accept what one man called “humilia- ple to back “reforms, not revolution”. At street coffee stalls “It is with this understanding that we have been contin- Tigray for fear of reprisals, though there have been no tion”. Many did not provide their names out of fear of ret- in Mekelle and in fields outside the city, Tigrayans said uously undertaking different reforms in the past months to reports of major attacks against the community. ribution. “I can’t judge whether Abiy directly hates us they would not stand by as national figures disparaged change our political culture, system and institutions,” he Tigrayans or is just using techniques to get power over their region and history. said. This is popular with many Ethiopians who resented ‘This has to stop’ us,” said a 19-year-old woman who runs a coffee stall. “If “There are efforts to corner the people of Tigray,” said Tigrayan domination of institutions such as the federal Others see veiled attempts to blame Tigrayans whenever he doesn’t accept to have discussions with our leaders, we Getachew Reda, a senior Tigrayan politician and EPRDF police, which violently repressed the protests. Other larger Abiy decries the way things were before he took the helm know our history,” she said. That history of armed resist- member who served as communications minister under Abiy’s ethnic groups accused Tigrayans of imposing a federal or accuses opposition forces of plotting against his reforms. ance looms large in a society where many families lost predecessor. “But we don’t believe that’s going to work system based on ethnic identity to “divide and rule”. In the People packed a stadium in Mekelle earlier this month to members in the war. A museum to the “martyrs” recounts because we are steeped in the tradition not just of defending capital, Addis Ababa, and other cities, Abiy’s face is every- vent their anger at a rally organized by the Tigray People’s the bravery of local fighters, and local TV channels broad- ourselves but also rising up to whatever challenge”. He where: on stickers, t-shirts and posters. But not in Tigray, Liberation Front, a former guerrilla movement turned politi- cast war footage of Tigrayans on the march. “Nobody will accused Abiy, a member of the country’s largest ethnic group, where he is increasingly unpopular. Although the political cal party. “We were expressing that we are isolated, that we kneel down here,” a tour guide said. — Reuters Ear cleaners, Morrison is expected to call the Ex-military federal election in mid-May, while the poll in Australia’s most populous roadside clerks: state New South Wales, which also chief named has an incumbent conservative gov- Antiquated jobs ernment, is tipped for March. Amid Australian poor opinion poll numbers, there are thrive in Yangon fears within the coalition that they Gov-General will lose power to Labor at the fed- eral election. Labor welcomed YANGON: Ear cleaners, roadside plumbers and Hurley’s appointment but said the typewriters for hire: just a sample of the antiquat- SYDNEY: A former chief of party was not informed of the ed jobs found on the pavements of Yangon’s Australia’s defense forces was yes- process, despite a national vote just Pansodan Street, where old-world businesses still terday appointed as the next gover- months away. “Ideally, so close to find customers. For years, tourists have been fasci- nor-general, the representative of the election, the Opposition would nated by odd trades in Yangon, from cycle trishaws Britain’s Queen, but will only assume have been properly consulted on this swerving through traffic to roadside clerks going the role after crucial state and feder- appointment, which is so important clickety-clack on typewriters. Some professions al elections next year. Retired gener- to Australia,” Labor frontbencher have become victims of the political and economic al David Hurley, 65, will be the sec- Jim Chalmers told national broad- reforms that started in earnest in 2011. Iced water ond ex-defense forces chief to caster ABC. sellers melted away as improved power supplies assume the role, which is largely cer- Australia’s governor-general can made fridges viable; bus conductors lost out in the emonial in the constitutional monar- open and dissolve parliament, com- revamp of the city’s transportation network; and chy but does hold the power to mission the prime minister and landline phone stalls are a relic in the mobile era. intervene in the government. appoint ministers, rubber-stamp But Pansodan, the beating heart of Myanmar’s YANGON: Manicurist Khin Ohn Myint cleans the nails of a customer under a bridge along Prime Minister Scott Morrison- laws passed by parliament and biggest city, remains home to obscure professions Pansodan Street in Yangon. — AFP whose embattled conservative coali- appoint judges and diplomats. In and evokes nostalgia among those who have plied tion could be turfed out in next 1975, then governor-general John their trade for decades along the potholed pave- year’s national poll-said he had cho- Kerr famously dismissed the Gough- ments below ageing colonial architecture. “This is toilet lid serving as an advertisement for his servic- she digs out a piece of dirt from under a cus- sen Hurley to ensure “stability, conti- Whitlam Labor government amid a the street for the books, for the writers, for the es, the 58-year-old is a veteran of Yangon’s small tomer’s toenail.

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