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Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa: Internal Tensions and External

Challenges Before and After Meles Zenawi

Article in The Journal of the Middle East and Africa · March 2014
DOI: 10.1080/21520844.2014.881704

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 The Journal of the Middle East and Africa

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Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa: Internal

Tensions and External Challenges Before and After
Meles Zenawi

Jan Záhořík

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Tensions and External Challenges Before and After Meles Zenawi, The Journal of the Middle
East and Africa, 5:1, 23-38, DOI: 10.1080/21520844.2014.881704

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Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 5:23–38, 2014
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ISSN: 2152-0844 print/2152-0852 online
DOI: 10.1080/21520844.2014.881704

Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa:

Internal Tensions and External Challenges
Before and After Meles Zenawi

JAN ZÁHOŘÍK

Since 1991, and more visibly in the last decade, Ethiopia has
witnessed enormous economic growth accompanied by the devel-
opment of infrastructure and growing demographic rates, as well
as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and corruption. Twenty years
of rule by Meles Zenawi, who died in summer 2012, have also
brought several internal tensions and external challenges with
which Ethiopia has to and will have to deal. Despite acclaimed dou-
ble-digit economic growth in the last decade, millions of Ethiopians
still live at a level of poverty more or less similar to that of the
previous regime. Ethnic and religious tensions together with socioe-
conomic frustration are already contributing to a tense social
atmosphere in Ethiopia. Relations with Eritrea, Ethiopian involve-
ment in Somalia, and disputes over Nile waters that have impacted
relations with Egypt are also in one way or another linked with
these internal tensions. This article deals with all these aspects of
the contemporary development of Ethiopia as a part of the legacy of
the late prime minister Meles Zenawi.

KEYWORDS corruption, development, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa,

politics, security

JAN ZÁHO ŘÍK is an assistant professor of modern history at the University of West Bohemia
in Pilsen, Czech Republic. He is the author of various articles, books, and chapters on the
history and politics of Ethiopia, including Imagining Ethiopia in the Era of the League of
Nations, 1923–1935 (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012). This article is based on a paper
that was recognized as the Best Paper–Africa at the 2013 Annual Conference of the Association
for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).

23
24 J. Záhořík

INTRODUCTION

Ethiopia is a country of paradoxes and turbulent developments, contradic-

tory images, conflicting identities, astonishing economic growth, and extreme
poverty. In the last two decades, Ethiopia has witnessed previously unseen
economic development, accompanied by various changes in the political
culture and environment at many levels of the state. Social and religious
development have oscillated between respect and understanding on the one
hand and tensions and hatred on the other.
This study deals with both the internal and the external factors that
have an influence on sociopolitical development in Ethiopia and argues that
these contexts are strongly interrelated and required in order to preserve
the status quo. Moreover, the article discusses some recent trends since the
death of Ethiopia’s long-time prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and is based
on research undertaken during my field trips to Ethiopia between 2009 and
2013. The sociopolitical developments in Ethiopia are viewed in a broader
perspective, making reference to regional issues, internal ethnic and reli-
gious conflicts, generational problems, external challenges emanating from
neighboring states, and the country’s own diaspora. While the twenty years
of rule of Meles Zenawi can be described as a certain kind of “Sovietization”
of Ethiopia, with its focus on visible signs of development and its rather
failed or problematic accommodation of diversity, the period after Meles
Zenawi may, if put into appropriate perspective, bring in an era of pere-
stroika, leading toward at least a seeming opening of the political space and
social reforms that may prevent the further fueling of tensions and frustration
in society.

ETHIOPIA AND THE HORN OF AFRICA AFTER THE COLD WAR

The end of the Cold War brought a long list of significant changes to Africa,
including the beginning of the democratization process in many countries,
the fall of dictators, the withdrawal of external support from either the United
States or the Soviet Union (and the subsequent collapse of the latter), and
the rise of new regional actors such as the late Ethiopian prime minister
Meles Zenawi. For the last two decades, the discourse on Ethiopia has fol-
lowed two major lines, one of which focuses on the diaspora’s critique of the
undemocratic and oppressive nature of the Ethiopian state and the so-called
“Tigrayan clique.” The second line has been characterized by a discussion
on the nature of a developed state, a debate that has neglected or down-
played the issues at the forefront of the former group’s critique, including
such issues as human rights, ethnic violence, and political oppression.
Although during the Derg regime (1974–1991) Ethiopia was one of the
poorest countries in the world, in the last decade, it has become one of
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 25

the world’s fastest-growing economies, and its GDP per capita has risen on
an annual basis. The Horn of Africa, in contrast, still represents one of the
most fragile regions in the world, with conflict-ridden Somalia, internation-
ally isolated Eritrea, clashes between South Sudan and Sudan, and internal
insecurity in Ethiopia caused by multiple factors.
The beginning of the federal period was nevertheless a very ambitious
and promising time, as the government sought to dismantle the centuries-
old model of centrally dominated state rule and proposed in its place a
decentralized federal system. Unfortunately, as became clear a little later,
decentralization was a failure, as the reforms from the beginning of the 1990s
did not materialize into a healthy political environment, instead spurring the
continuation of the rather stagnant political culture inherited from the past.
Three main features characterized the 1991–1992 era. The first was
the growing role of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF), already formed by 1989 under the auspices of the Tigray Peoples’
Liberation Front (TPLF), which itself included several other political parties
and represented an attempt to form a multinational organization that would
lack a direct ethnic connection. Second, the aspirations of the Oromo to
decide for themselves which type of government or rule they would like was
seen from the very beginning as representing a threat to the “new Ethiopia”
that the EPRDF wanted to establish. Last, but not least, the mutual distrust
between these two blocs finally resulted in the departure of the Oromo
Liberation Front (OLF) from the transitional talks. Moreover, the existence of
the EPRDF-backed Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO) was
seen by representatives of the OLF as a weapon that could be used against
the pro-independence aspirations of the Oromo.1
From an international point of view, the EPRDF-dominated political
discourse was challenged by foreign donors’ lack of willingness to fund non-
democratic regimes. This discourse was a part of the larger post–Cold War
discourse that brought regime change and democratization to the forefront
of humanitarian and development aid thinking. Many of the African regimes
were forced to redefine their policies and needs as well as their relationship
with civil society in order to obtain foreign investment and partnerships.

ETHNIC FEDERALISM AND ITS SHORTCOMINGS

After 1991, the political discourse in Ethiopia was dominated by ethnic con-
siderations, and the political scene was also significantly ethnicized as a
result of the existence of ethnically based liberation fronts that had previ-
ously been fighting against the Derg regime. Ethnic federalism, which was

1
John Markakis, Ethiopia. The Last Two Frontiers (Oxford: James Currey, 2011), 231.
26 J. Záhořík

to develop later, was thus a natural result of the failed dreams and hopes
of millions of people in Ethiopia. At the very beginning, Ethiopia was even
acknowledged as one of the promising countries in terms of democratiza-
tion and liberalization. Unfortunately, the political culture was too rooted
in a rather authoritarian environment, and although some attempts were
made to improve the dialogue between the numerous political parties, it had
become evident by 1992 that the course of history would not follow a purely
democratic path.
While in the rest of Africa, the tendency after 1991 was to create a
nonethnic political environment, Ethiopia, because of its slightly different
historical experience and its social demands for equality, established what
would later become known as ethnic federalism. From the very begin-
ning, this approach had many supporters as well as critics, the latter of
whom included its most significant donors, who viewed the situation with
skepticism.2 Ethnic federalism also had many shortcomings, such as the
idea that there exist territorially defined ethnic areas that are inhabited by
members of a dominant ethnic group. It actually suggested the existence of
ethnically homogeneous federal states, which is a false notion. Ethiopia is
an extremely diverse country where no region can be proclaimed as ethni-
cally homogeneous, a situation that is the result of centuries-old patterns of
migration as well as the forced resettlement of people that mainly occurred
during the Derg regime. The migration of youth to urban centers is another
“natural” phenomenon that has led to the creation of very diverse social and
ethnic environments in every town and in every region.3
Ethnicity was adopted by the EPRDF as a basic principle for “national
self-determination,” but, as pointed out by other authors, it is based on a
rather contradictory (instrumentalist and primordialist) Stalinist understand-
ing of ethnic identities. According to Lovise Aalen, the first notion presumes
that “ethnicity is malleable and can be manipulated and mobilized for polit-
ical ends,”4 while the EPRDF’s primordial approach to ethnicity is based on
a belief that “the criteria for establishing ‘nations, nationalities, and peoples’
are objectively and externally identifiable, based on fixed characteristics that
can be ascribed from outside, without the involvement or self-reflection of
members of the ethnic group.”5

2
Lahra Smith, “Voting for an Ethnic Identity: Procedural and Institutional Responses to Ethnic Conflict
in Ethiopia,” Journal of Modern African Studies 45, no. 5 (2007): 573.
3
Assefa Fisseha, “Theory Versus Practice in the Implementation of Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism,”
in Ethnic Federalism: The Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective, ed. David Turton (Oxford:
James Currey, 2006), 135.
4
Lovise Aalen, The Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia: Actors, Power and Mobilisation Under Ethnic
Federalism (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 36.
5
Ibid., 37.
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 27

Moreover, federalism usually coincides with decentralization and the

division of duties and responsibilities between various levels of state admin-
istration. In Ethiopia, decentralization completely failed, which, according to
Paulos Chanie, can be best explained by reference to “the clientelistic rela-
tionship between the central and regional political parties.”6 The Ethiopian
way of centralization is characterized by central dominance over expenditure
and revenue assignments, an overall dependence on central government, a
lack of decision-making freedom at the lower ranks of state administration,
and other factors that combine to reveal a trend in Ethiopia’s modern and
contemporary history that one might refer to as a “continuation of power
strategy.”7 This approach began to be used during the imperial period and
has continued through socialism until the present time.
Among other things, this power strategy is by and large marked by a
quasi total control of land and the means of production; in this system, any-
one who chooses to criticize or challenge the decisions of the government
is likely to be punished “by losing his means of production.”8 This domi-
nant role of the government can be illustrated by the strategy adopted in
the 2005 elections to force people, particularly young “rebellious” people, to
register to vote. As documented by Lefort, those “who refused to register ran
the risk of being denied access to basic services on which the administration
has an almost total monopoly, and even to the usufruct rights of their plots,
which would force them to leave their villages. They also knew that these
registers would be passed on to the woreda administration along with a list
of the recalcitrant.”9 Threats, coercion, control, and dominance seem to be
the most common set of characteristics that apply to the political culture of
all three consecutive regimes, and any of the seeming political changes of
the past two and a half decades have not changed anything in relation to
this pattern of behavior.

PARADOXES OF ETHIOPIAN SOCIOPOLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

Ethiopia is certainly a country of paradoxes, a country of huge differences

and discrepancies. When traveling throughout Ethiopia, one can witness
extremely green landscapes, especially during and after the rainy season,
but these give way to burnt trees and grass during the dry season. Already

6
Paulos Chanie, “Clientelism and Ethiopia’s Post-1991 Decentralisation,” Journal of Modern African
Studies 45, no. 3 (2007): 357.
7
See Jan Záhořík, “Meles and the Rest: Continuation of the Power Strategy in Ethiopia,” in Africa:
Power and Powerlessness, ed. Hana Horáková, Paul Nugent, and Peter Skalník (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2010),
44–54.
8
René Lefort, “Powers—Mengist—and Peasants in Rural Ethiopia: The May 2005 Elections,” Journal
of Modern African Studies 45, no. 2 (2007): 259.
9
Ibid., 266.
28 J. Záhořík

by the nineteenth century, some of the European travelers had begun to

admire Ethiopia for its beauty and fertility. Unfortunately, as revealed dur-
ing the heavy famines of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the country’s lack of
sufficient infrastructure, its high level of centralization, and the government’s
tight control over the population led to further economic slumps, which were
exacerbated by the challenges of a growing population.
Alleged double-digit economic growth has materialized in the form of
developments in infrastructure, new hotels and restaurants, boulevards, and
hospitals, all of which are readily apparent in places such as Addis Ababa,
Bahr Dar, Dire Dawa, and Awasa. However, the antithesis manifests itself
in the form of extreme poverty, homelessness (in urban areas), generally
stagnating salaries, and growing inflation. All of this is evident in spite of the
visibly growing GDP per capita of the past decade (Table 1).
The seemingly positive economic markers are challenged by the real-
ity that can be observed on a daily basis on the streets of Ethiopian towns.
Demographic growth (Table 2) and the high percentage of young people in
society may lead to a generational problem related to higher rates of unem-
ployment among young and even educated people with university degrees.
The younger generation seeks employment in the private sector, anticipating
the reality of low salaries in the state sector. It is not rare to see university
students taking on three poorly paid jobs at the same time in order to satisfy
their daily basic needs and demands, such as accommodation, food, and
books.
Despite its economic growth, Ethiopia still appears on the lowest lev-
els of the Human Development Index ranking, and without the engagement
of the United Nations World Food Programme, the country would not be
able to feed at least 2.5 million of its inhabitants who are dependent on
foreign aid.10 In the last two decades, there has been an enormous growth

TABLE 1 GDP Per Capita

Country 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Ethiopia 560 600 700 750 700 800 900 1,000 700 800 900 1,000 1,100
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=et&v=67.

TABLE 2 Demographic Growth

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Ethiopia 2.76 2.7 2.64 1.96 1.89 2.36 2.31 2.27 3.21 3.21 3.2 3.19 3.18
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx? v=24&c=et&l=en.

10
BBC, Focus on Africa, July–September 2012, 19.
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 29

in infrastructure, the development of facilities such as factories, and foreign

investment projects, but with the growing population, salaries and employ-
ment rates remain at dangerously low levels, while inflation rates are rising
and affecting a huge proportion of the population.
Regionally, economic development is not well balanced, which is a con-
stant cause of dissatisfaction, especially in Oromia. If one compares the town
of Jimma, for instance, which is the biggest and historically most important
market center of southwestern Ethiopia, with towns such as Awassa, Bahr
Dar, and Dire Dawa, one will witness huge discrepancies between them.
The town of Dembi Dollo, once an important trade center and the first con-
necting point by air with Addis Ababa, has been abandoned for the past two
decades, and it is still the case that no paved road connects the town with
Ghimbi, 120 kilometers to the east.11
Similarly, huge disparities can be found in health care and education,
despite the seeming efforts of the government to strengthen the capacities
of universities in Ethiopia, which now number thirty-five. Universities lack
qualified personnel, and their campuses, usually built on the outskirts of
towns (such as in Jimma, Nazret, and Nekemte) are said by some to dou-
ble up as perfect military barracks in times of need.12 This illustrates one of
the paradoxes of sociopolitical development in Ethiopia—a visible economic
boom contrasting with an absolute paranoia emanating from overwhelm-
ing oppression. As has been witnessed in places such as Tunisia, relative
economic prosperity and the existence of a middle class do not bring sta-
bility and security if they are not matched with the provision of increased
freedoms, such as the freedom of speech.
Moreover, the distribution of the middle class in Ethiopia is uneven; it
is evident in large cities such as Addis Ababa, Bahr Dar, and Dire Dawa,
but in places such as Jimma, Nekemte, Harar, and even Awassa, it is difficult
to find a significant and coordinated middle class. Economically, middle-
class status in Ethiopia is directly attached to affiliation with the EPRDF, and
without membership in the party, one can hardly expect to secure a better-
paid job. This leads the younger generation, sometimes referred to as the
“EPRDF generation,”13 to adopt two basic strategies: either they must leave
the country or else they must get a job with a private company, because
even with a university degree and the protection (in terms of a relatively

11
The plan to build a road from Ghimbi to Dembi Dollo was proposed by the government in 2009,
and it was suggested that all inhabitants of the city and the surrounding areas pay one hundred Bïrr
each in order to gather the 50 million Bïrrs necessary to complete the road. No such proposal has been
put forth for other projects, for instance, the construction of a road connecting Nekemte with Bedele, a
project under the supervision of the Chinese Government Construction Company.
12
Personal communication with an Ethiopian scholar, Nazret, September 10, 2012.
13
The term is frequently used by local Ethiopian media.
30 J. Záhořík

stable job) of the governmental institution, salaries are too low to satisfy
basic needs and demands.
From a broader perspective, it seems as if the EPRDF leadership has
lost any kind of contact with the “football generation”14 —another name for
those young people who are not so much interested in ideological disputes,
political conflicts between the government and the opposition, or any kind
of politicization in relation to daily life. They have material needs, as well as
visions and dreams, that cannot be fulfilled because of various administrative
obstacles and the everyday control of the EPRDF government. In the eyes
of many, this generational conflict may be overshadowed by ethnic and
religious conflicts; whichever one predominates, there is clearly the potential
for conflict in future years.

INTERNAL CONFLICTS AND EXTERNAL CHALLENGES

Since the 1974 revolution, Ethiopia’s internal political development has been
significantly influenced by a number of local conflicts that have usually
resulted from a combination of factors. Generally, the Horn of Africa is char-
acterized by a high level of cross-border conflicts, which have a great impact
on the stability of states and international security issues. The Eritrean war
of independence (1962–1991) was followed by civil war in Somalia (from
1991 on) and accompanied by civil wars in the Sudan and Ethiopia. All these
conflicts were direct or indirect results of the Cold War and were prolonged
by the provision of support from one of the blocs or through a number of
proxy wars.
After 1991, and especially during the last decade, the number of large-
scale conflicts in the region has decreased, but this does not mean that
Ethiopia is now more stable. The Cold War context disappeared quickly with
the fall of the Soviet Union, but other issues, such as the global need for land
and resources, have engulfed Ethiopia with great intensity. In many of the
country’s peripheral regions, a combination of factors that cause conflicts is
evident, including cross-border migration, land use questions, access to water
and resources, citizenship, and ethnic favoritism. For instance, Gambella, the
smallest federal state, inhabited by only a couple hundred thousand inhab-
itants, has become one of the most dangerous areas of Ethiopia as a result
of conflicts between pastoralists and agriculturalists, who utilize land for dif-
ferent purposes.15 Because of the failure of decentralization, the Gambella
regional government is very much dependent on the central government

14
Interview with a PhD student from Addis Ababa University, September 4, 2012.
15
Monika M. Sommer, “Ethiopian Federalism Seen from the Regional State of Gambella: A Perspective
from the Border Region,” in After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, ed. Elke Grawert
(Oxford: James Currey, 2010), 219–20.
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 31

and is unable to prevent conflicts to the extent that it would wish. Local con-
flicts with cross-border aspects can be seen elsewhere, as in, for instance,
the Afar region, where for a long time both the Somali-speaking Issas and
Afars have been receiving support from different actors, both within and
outside Ethiopia.16 These alliances only fuel and complicate local conflicts
and contribute to a much-obfuscated situation with which government insti-
tutions must deal. Furthermore, land-grabbing is becoming more and more
a contributor to conflict in regions such as Gambella, as the government has
rented out parcels of land the size of the Czech Republic to foreign compa-
nies, mainly from India and Saudi Arabia. Public discontent has been one of
the causes of several violent attacks on the workers of these companies.
Despite these “peripheral” conflicts, there are far more challenging
issues in Ethiopia today, such as the existence of ethnically and religiously
based political opposition groups directed against the regime. The Oromo
Liberation Front is, according to Alemseged Abbay, “among the oldest cen-
trifugal forces in Ethiopia,”17 but it has achieved limited success in terms of
ethnic mobilization and political action. One of the reasons for this limited
success is that for nationalism to flourish, a shared history and traditions are
necessary focal points, and these do not exist among the various Oromo
clans such as the Guji, Boorana, Arsi, Tulama, and others. Moreover, the
Oromo population does not share either a common economic or a religious
heritage.18 Recent splits within the OLF, however, may bring some of its
leading voices closer to the politics of consensus rather than negation.
The country’s religious diversity shows how close Ethiopia is to the
Middle East and how closely connected these regions are despite their
seemingly different political ideologies. Saudi Arabia is one of Ethiopia’s
most important economic partners because of its oil, as is the United Arab
Emirates.19 In addition to Chinese products, a person in Addis Ababa or
Ethiopia in general can easily find and buy plenty of commodities made

16
Yasin Mohammed Yasin, “Trans-Border Political Alliance in the Horn of Africa: The Case of the
Afar-Issa Conflict,” in Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa, ed. Dereje Feyissa and
Markus Virgil Hoehne (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), 86.
17
Alemseged Abbay, “Diversity and State-Building in Ethiopia,” African Affairs 103, no. 413 (2004):
602.
18
Ibid., 603.
19
Recently, thousands of (mostly female) Ethiopian migrants, the majority of whom are low-skilled
laborers, have entered the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, but also the United Arab Emirates,
Lebanon, and Qatar. Migration has been both legal and illegal and reached its peak between 2010 and
2012. Saudi Arabia has urged the illegal migrants either to legalize their documents or to leave the country.
While countries like Pakistan and the Philippines use a seven-month period to legalize the documents of
their workers, Ethiopia has failed to do so, which has caused repatriation of more than 100,000 migrant
workers back to Ethiopia. Human trafficking, illegal migration, and poor conditions of migrants who are
being returned from the Middle East belong to the most debated issues in contemporary Ethiopia, fueling
further social problems and dissatisfaction with the government, which is evidently unable to solve the
situation. For more, see Tesfaye Ejigu, “Governing by crises. A Labor Migration Gone Terribly Wrong,”
Addis Standard 3, no. 34 (December 2013): 10–13.
32 J. Záhořík

in these two Arab countries. Recently, religious identity has come to the
forefront of media and academic interest and attention, especially after the
growth of the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia and the Ethiopian interven-
tion in Mogadishu, which itself gave rise to al-Shabaab as a separate radical
military unit.20 In Ethiopia, the rise of religious tensions has marked the last
couple of years of political development and has overshadowed ethnic rival-
ries and tensions. In this regard, Jon Abbink writes about the “primordialist”
character of the discursive battles between Muslim and Christian commu-
nities and about the sharpening of “boundaries between faith communities
and, thereby, between citizens.”21
Christianity in its Ethiopian Orthodox version was the country’s dom-
inant faith for centuries, but after 1974, all religions were declared equal;
however, it is still the case, as can be seen throughout the past two decades,
that the Muslim minority in particular feels threatened by the ruling party
and its anti-Muslim actions. Muslim and Christian polemics have usually cen-
tered around the construction of mosques and churches or decisions about
public holidays,22 but recently, Ethiopian Muslims have attached themselves
to the global Islam movement, largely as a result of the presence of various
books and other materials such as CDs and DVDs arriving from the Arabian
Peninsula, Egypt, Pakistan, and other locations.23 Recent developments (dis-
cussed later) have not resulted in the emergence of clear solutions to these
tensions.
Ethiopia’s security has been challenged by disputes with Eritrea and
civil wars in Somalia and the Sudan. Border conflicts in the Gambella and
Ogaden regions were largely caused by external factors but contributed
to a rise in tensions along the Sudanese, Kenyan, and Somalian borders.
Between 1998 and 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea were engaged in fighting over a
semidesert area along their mutual borders, a dispute that cost approximately
70,000 lives.
Since 1991, and more demonstrably since 2001, following the internal
struggle in the TPLF, Ethiopia has become the major power in the region,
with ambitions to become a hydroelectric superpower exporting electrical
energy to many of the neighboring countries. In the twentieth century, Egypt
dominated the Nile waters debate, as demonstrated in a number of cases,
including disputes with Tanzania and the countries of the Great Lakes. As of
June 2013, however, Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam project was about
“20 percent complete and Egyptian officials worry that when it’s finished

20
J. Peter Pham, “State Collapse, Insurgency, and Famine in the Horn of Africa: Legitimacy and the
Ongoing Somali Crisis,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 2, no. 2 (2011): 170.
21
Jon Abbink, “Religion in Public Spaces: Emerging Muslim-Christian Polemics in Ethiopia,” African
Affairs 110, no. 439 (2011): 254.
22
Terje Østebø, The Question of Becoming: Islamic Reform Movements in Contemporary Ethiopia,
CMI Working Paper 2007/8 (Bergen, Norway: Christian Michelsen Institute, 2007), 11.
23
Abbink, “Religion in Public Spaces,” 264.
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 33

in 2017, it will severely reduce the flow of water through the lower Nile
channel and turn the arable parts of their country back into a desert.”24
Despite these diplomatic quarrels between the two countries, it is difficult
to believe that there will be any real violence between them; a more likely
scenario is that efforts will be made to prevent the escalation of any kind of
dispute, especially during the current period of political instability in Egypt,
which has undermined the strong position that Egypt maintained during
the Mubarak era. Jon Abbink’s illustrative account of the absence of debate
between government authorities and local people in relation to the Gibe
III Dam on the Omo River25 reveals another level of tension with regard to
the construction of gigantic dams. This type of behavior makes any kind of
communication between interested parties almost impossible and presents a
murky image of the state of development in Ethiopia today.
Besides the issues concerning the Nile waters and those related to the
dams, constant critique of the regime has emanated from outside the country,
with a degree of internal collusion. By this I am referring to the diaspora, and
in particular the significant and strong Oromo diaspora in Europe and the
United States, which has been able to bring information about recent devel-
opments in Ethiopia to the forefront of attention of both the academic and
the lay communities. At a workshop in Bergen, Norway, in 2009, Daawuud
Ibssa stated the following with regard to the struggle of the OLF against the
past three consecutive regimes in Ethiopia:

Every power transfer has been through violence. The winner takes all;
compromise is seen as weakness. That is what makes the automatic resort
to violence and political machinations possible. The regime has perfected
its oppressive machinery. Its propaganda campaign has escalated to the
extent of suppressing any movement, whether political or nonpolitical,
inside the country and branding those outside as terrorists. Nevertheless,
whenever one venue is closed, the subjugated people resort to the next
available means and the machinery follows suit—thus perpetuating the
vicious cycle, the outcome of which is abject poverty, endless war, dis-
ease, famine, repression manifested by thousands of political prisoners
and the forced exodus of skilled manpower.26

The Third OLF National Congress in 2004 agreed on a resolution

consisting of seventeen points, of which the third assured

24
See David Arnold, “Egypt, Ethiopia square off over new Nile River dam,” VOA News, June 20,
2013, accessed September 7, 2013, at http://www.voanews.com/content/egypt-and-ethiopia-square-off-
over-new-nile-river-dam/1685704.html.
25
See Jon Abbink, “Dam Controversies: Contested Governance and Developmental Discourse on the
Ethiopian Omo River,” Social Anthropology 20, no. 2 (2012): 125–44.
26
Daawud Ibsaa, “Prospects for Oromo Struggle Under the Prevailing Situation,” in Exploring New
Political Alternatives for the Oromo in Ethiopia: Report from Oromo Workshop and Its After-effects, ed.
Siegfried Pausewang (Bergen: Christian Michelsen Institute, 2009), 58–59.
34 J. Záhořík

other peoples in Ethiopia and the region that the victory of the struggle
of the Oromo people will lead to democracy, lasting peace and stability.
We do not hold any people or community to be our enemy. Our enemy
is the oppressive system that is militating against democracy, peace, and
stability. The Oromo holds a strong desire to live in a just peace, freedom
and harmony with its neighbors. For this noble desire to be materialized,
the right to self-determination needs to be recognized as the cornerstone
to chart a new common future.27

According to many Oromo scholars from Ethiopia with whom I have

conducted interviews or had informal talks in the past couple of years, the
OLF is not an issue for many Oromos, as they lack any kind of genuine
political and truly Oromo party that could unite, rather than disunite, people
living in Ethiopia. The OLF is thus seen by many as a kind of necessary
enemy of the government, to which the EPRDF can always point when
political tension or “terrorist” threats arise in Ethiopia, thus allowing the easy
and effective oppression of any possible political opposition. Moreover, the
Ethiopian intelligentsia would rather prefer to see internal reforms leading
to further progress in social, economic, and political development inside
Ethiopia than to rely on an external force with which they, let alone the
general public, can hardly identify.

ETHIOPIA AFTER MELES

The era of Meles Zenawi was marked by what I called in the introduction
to this article a “Sovietization” of Ethiopia, with total state control over major
issues in the country, an absence of genuine decentralization, the absolute
power of the ruling party, and a focus on the developmental state. The period
after the death of Meles Zenawi, although its future is hard to predict, may
bring at least modest change, leading to what we may call an Ethiopian “per-
estroika” or the restructuring of those parts of the Ethiopian social, economic,
and political order still under the umbrella of the ruling party. Any other sce-
nario risks fueling multiple crises in Ethiopia and may bring the country
into serious trouble, taking into account the aforementioned combination of
internal and external issues.
The death of Meles Zenawi came as a shock to most Ethiopians,
although the Internet was full of rumors concerning his health for a long
period prior to his death. After a long silence, the Ethiopian government pub-
lished an official statement announcing the prime minister’s death but only

27
See “The Resolutions, Declarations and Position of the 3rd OLF National Congress,” in Ibsaa,
Exploring New Political Alternatives, 69 (see note 25).
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 35

briefly explained all the circumstances. Immediately, all Ethiopian newspa-

pers were full of articles related to Meles’s career, mostly with a positive slant.
A few of them, however, did not hesitate to turn the spotlight on the rather
questionable two decades of his reign in Ethiopia. One of them, an article
in Fortune newspaper, was called “An Indelible Figure Who Leaves Mixed
Regional Legacies.” The article, written by a group of authors, mainly made
comments about Meles’s relationship with neighboring Eritrea and its presi-
dent, Isaias Afeworki.28 Despite the fact that in the early days of the struggle
against the Derg regime, the TPLF and the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front
established “close military relations,”29 since the independence of Eritrea,
relations between the countries have become the main obstacle to peace
and security in the Horn of Africa.
The Addis Standard went even further when it posed a question on its
cover as to whether Meles Zenawi had been a hero, a dictator, a peacemaker,
or a warmonger.30 One of the authors in this issue of the journal described
in the following words what many people probably thought about Meles
Zenawi: “For the average bystander trying to understand just what sort of
a leader Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was is mystifying. He
was loved by many but at the same time dreaded; feared but at the same
time respected; idolized but at the same time loathed; a warmonger but
at the same time a peace maker.”31 Unlike many other commentators in
other newspapers in Ethiopia, the author provided a very balanced picture
of the successes and failures of Meles Zenawi and demystified the greatness
and glory of the late prime minister, in whom many people in Ethiopia
believed or were forced to believe as a result of two decades of government
propaganda.
Nevertheless, from all around the world, condolences and obituaries
celebrating Meles Zenawi’s legacy flooded into Ethiopia through direct diplo-
matic channels and the media. The former chairman of the African Union
Commission, Jean Ping emphasized Meles Zenawi’s Pan-Africanism and his
role as a voice of Africa.32
In socioeconomic terms, Ethiopia still has to deal with an unstable
inflation rate, which while falling in 2012 from 41 percent (in January) to
11.8 percent (in December) nevertheless has risen over the past decade.

28
See Bezawit Bekele and Mahlet Mesfin, “An Indelible Figure Who Leaves Mixed Regional Legacies,”
Fortune, August 26, 2012, 12.
29
John Young, “The Tigray and Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Fronts: A History of Tensions and
Pragmatism,” Journal of Modern African Studies 34, no. 1 (1996): 106.
30
See Addis Standard 2, no. 19 (September 2012).
31
Tsedale lemma, “A Hero? A Dictator Peacemaker or a Warmonger?,”Addis Standard 2, no. 19
(September 2012): 7.
32
See “AU pays tribute in memory of late Ethiopean PM Meles Zenawi,” www.globaltimes.cn/
content/730507.shtml.
36 J. Záhořík

When taking this trend into account, along with the country’s alleged double-
digit economic growth, it is clear that inflation mainly impacts the poorer
urban dwellers in Addis Ababa and some other bigger cities who do not have
access to agriculture and have to purchase all their consumable products.33
A shortage of foreign currency is one of the immediate problems with
which the government of the newly designated prime minister, Hailemariam
Dessalegn, has had to deal, not to mention the high level of corruption,
identified by the business community as the main drain on the Ethiopian
economy.34 Hailemariam Dessalegn’s nomination as prime minister was seen
by some journalists as an “historic oath,” and they noted that this “man from
the small town of Boloso Sore”35 was the first EPRDF prime minister to
originate from southern Ethiopia. Recently, hopes have been focused on an
alleged group of reformists within the TPLF, centered around Debretsion
Gebremichael, who holds a Ph.D. in engineering and stands at the forefront
of the current anti-corruption campaign, which some observers regard as
being one of the most crucial tests of the country’s ability to break away from
the legacy of Meles Zenawi. Corruption during the late prime minister’s time
was something of a natural phenomenon, as Meles’s strategy was to actively
surround himself with people who had “absolute loyalty” toward him. As a
reward for their loyalty, they were exempted from any kind of criminal liabil-
ity and protected by the prime minister himself; therefore, they could never
be accused of, for instance, any financial crime. If recent anti-corruption
efforts are to be followed up with serious investigations into corruption and
financial fraud, then, according to several journalists and observers, Azeb
Mesfin, the widow of Meles Zenawi, nicknamed the “mother of corruption,”
could be on the list of the accused.36 However, the anti-corruption campaign
is mocked by many, as the EPRDF government has lost both legitimacy and
the trust of its voters, including the educated elite who can hardly find a gen-
uine alternative to the party, as the opposition parties are rather fragmented
and lack any kind of unified approach.37
Ethiopian pragmatism has characterized the country’s foreign policy
in all three consecutive regimes (imperial, socialist, federal). Recently, an
Ethiopian delegation visited Moscow in order to strengthen existing Russian
investments in Ethiopia, especially in the mining industry, in which the

33
See Bisrat Teshome, “Ethiopia’s Comprehensive Inflation. Good News at Last,” Addis Standard 2,
no. 24 (February 2013): 10–11.
34
See “Ethiopian PM Desalegn embarks on anti-corruption campaign,” available at
http:www.theafricareport.com/East-Horn-Africa/ethiopian-pm-desalegn-embarks-on-anti-corruption-
campaign.html The Reporter, September 1, 2012.
35
See the front cover of The Reporter, September 22, 2012.
36
See “A Reformist Group Within TPLF?,” Ethiomedia, September 2, 2013, accessed September 6,
2013, at http://www.ethiomedia.com/2013report/4660.html.
37
I would like to thank my friends in Addis Ababa for a deeper insight into the opposition realities.
They know who they are.
 Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa 37

former Soviet Union has traditionally played an important role.38 Among

Ethiopia’s other major foreign partners, we can see a wide range of
states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, China, and
Turkey. Pragmatism has also characterized Ethiopia’s “neighborhood policy,”
as, together with Kenya, Addis Ababa has recognized the new quasi-
independent state in Somalia, Jubaland. According to the media, the reason
for this decision was simple: intensive international trade passes through
Kismayo on its way to both Kenya and Ethiopia, and consequently, both
states have an enormous incentive for creating “their own” state, even though
it is regarded by many other international actors as illegitimate.39
Meles Zenawi’s dream of Ethiopia becoming a hydroelectric superpower
has continued, as well as the realization of gigantic water projects, despite the
extreme costs. The Great Renaissance Dam is likely to have significant conse-
quences beyond the regional level, likely affecting relations between Sudan,
Egypt, and Ethiopia. According to the Ethiopian media, one of Ethiopia’s
most important foreign partners, Saudi Arabia, has become one of the biggest
critics of the dam. Keeping an eye on pan-Arab solidarity, Saudi Arabian
officials are worried about the effects the dam might have on Khartoum
and Cairo. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia remains one of the top investors in
Ethiopia, and it is unlikely that the criticism will become anything more than
vocal.40 Egypt is clearly the most important critic of the Renaissance Dam,
and shortly after the death of Meles Zenawi, the Egyptian minister of pro-
duction, Reda Hafez, blamed the late Ethiopian prime minister for causing
tension between the two countries by stating that “Zenawi was part of the
problem. He always talked about the possibility of wars with Egypt because
of Nile water.”41

CONCLUSION

From the macro-perspective, since Meles Zenawi’s death, little or nothing

has changed in Ethiopia. It seems that the EPRDF government has decided
to continue with what some observers choose to call the “lionization of the
late Prime Minister,”42 as his portrait still abounds in the cities and the main

38
See “Ethiopia: Ethio-Russia Investment Forum in Moscow,” available at allafrica.
com/stories/201303081155.html.
39
See Martin Plaut, “Ethiopia and Kenya help dismember Somalia,” New Statesman, September 3,
2013, accessed September 7, 2013, at http://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2013/09/ethiopia-and-kenya-
help-dismember-somalia.
40
Ibid.
41
“Former Egyptian Millitary official Denies plan to Sabotage Ethiopian Dam, Blames Tensions
on Zenawi,” available at www.ooskamnews.com/story/2012/09/fprmer-egyptian-military-offecial-denies-
plan-sabotage-ethiopian-dam-blames-tensions,” printed also in The Sub-Saharan Informer, September 21,
2012.
42
See Kirubeal Tadesse, “Year after leader dies, Ethiopia is little changed,” Ethiomedia, August 21,
2013, accessed September 7, 2013, at http://www.ethiomedia.com/2013report/4629.html.
 38 J. Záhořík

streets and his developmental vision, based on the idea of the construction of
the Great Renaissance Dam, is still being promoted.43 However, very recent
developments within the EPRDF ruling party may appear to suggest that the
EPRDF is seeking to find its own post-Meles policy by focusing on the issue
of corruption. The limits of the developmental state remain clear: whereas
there is a focus on gigantic construction projects and new hotels and fancy
restaurants, civil society and the political scene remain neglected and very
low down on the list of priorities.
The sociopolitical developments within Ethiopia over the past two
decades (during and after the rule of Meles Zenawi) reveal a remarkable
tendency of the government to control almost all aspects of daily life, the
type of behavior that serves to detach the ruling party from the needs and
demands of ordinary people on the ground, including the most important
social basis for its future existence—urban youth. As identified in this article,
the EPRDF faces multilevel challenges, including both internal and external
issues that might have far-reaching consequences and seem in many ways
to be interrelated. If political stability is the ultimate goal of the EPRDF, then
necessary reforms have to be introduced, including internal EPRDF reform,
in order to detach the government from the legacy of the Meles Zenawi era
and help it gain legitimacy. Otherwise, more tensions are likely to arise in
the near future, with the emergence of a kind of Ethiopian “Arab Spring”
(although in a very different context and under different circumstances than
in North Africa) being one of the unwanted potential outcomes.

43
The billboards along roads show Meles Zenawi in the future, accompanied by three small children,
with the Great Renaissance Dam in the background, showing the prospective future of the nation.

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