In his cramped studio in Mekelle, the Tigrayan reggae singer Solomon Yikunoamlak, best known for love songs, was in July 2019 working on a ballad calling for unity in his native Tigray. He expected it to resonate with listeners who felt their region’s authority fading under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. “Nowadays everybody becomes activists, and everybody becomes politicians,” he told AFP. “This is because of the current problems.”
Since taking office in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed had loosened controls in long-authoritarian Ethiopia and upset power arrangements that had stood for decades. Many Tigrayans felt sidelined as other groups jostled for influence, and in Mekelle residents complained that they had been scapegoated for the country’s troubles. Tigrayans make up about 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population but were long seen as holding outsized power. After the Tigray People’s Liberation Front helped topple the Derg military government in 1991, it became the strongest party in the ruling coalition. Under Abiy Ahmed, Tigrayans had been removed from top posts and in some cases jailed on corruption and human rights charges.
The anger came into the open after the killings of five senior officials on 22 June 2019, which the government described as part of a coup attempt in neighbouring Amhara. Two of the dead, including army chief of staff General Seare Mekonnen, were Tigrayan, and at their funerals in Mekelle some mourners denounced the prime minister as a traitor. “There is a huge frustration here in Tigray,” said Nebiyu Sehil Mikael, a writer and lecturer at Mekelle University. “There is a sharp opposition against the federal government.”
Some of those targeted by federal authorities had become local heroes. Clothing vendor Zayid Meles said one of her best sellers was a T-shirt reading “I am Getachew Assefa”, after the former intelligence chief who was dismissed in 2018 and was wanted on an arrest warrant but believed to be living in Tigray. “All Tigrayans buy it,” she said. “Getachew is a hero.” Mahari Yohans, a Tigrayan political commentator, said fears about the future outweighed frustration with the TPLF’s record on democracy and poverty. “The politics of Tigray is the politics of security,” he said. “We are under threat.”
Wondimu Asamnew, a Mekelle native and long-serving Ethiopian diplomat, said Tigrayans were increasingly entertaining the idea of secession. “It’s very sad,” he said. “They have started even to question whether or not they belong to the country.”
The tension had even reached football. Fans of Mekelle 70 Enderta were angered earlier in 2019 when supporters of a rival club tore down a poster of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi during a match in Addis Ababa, and a later clash in Mekelle led the Ethiopian Football Federation to suspend the league temporarily. When Mekelle 70 Enderta won the league title at home in July, with party officials in the stands, fans set off fireworks late into the night. Not everyone welcomed the politics. “The so-called politicians need to focus on their politics,” said fan Asmelash Nigus. “It would be better if they don’t involve themselves in football.”
Sources: The Independent, Uganda (AFP)