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| Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopian PM |
Barely a month before Ethiopia’s elections,
opposition activist Getahun Abraham walked into a compound of government
offices in the southern town of Gimbichu, doused his body in gasoline and set
himself alight. It took more than 10 minutes for bystanders to extinguish the
flames.
“We were in a meeting when we
heard a scream,” local police Chief, Moges Bafe recalled of the day the
25-year-old physics teacher committed suicide; when we ran out, he was burning
and we also screamed. The fire looked like a big house was being burned.”
Getahun had become desperate
after the authorities rebuffed his requests to transfer him from his home
village to Gimbichu and believed the refusals were politically motivated,
according to his friend, Teshome Demissie, a hospital cashier.
Unlike Mohamed Bouazizi, the
unemployed Tunisian whose self-immolation helped trigger the Arab Spring in
December 2010, Getahun’s suicide hasn’t sparked protests in Ethiopia. An
Abyssinian Spring looked as remote as it can possibly be.
Africa’s second-most populous
nation after Nigeria with the continent’s fastest growing economy over the past
decade remains under the firm grip of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF), which won all but one of the 547 parliamentary seats
in elections five years ago.
Little is expected to change on
May 24 when Ethiopians vote for federal and regional lawmakers.
The ruling party “will win big
time” because of its development record and better organisation, Dereje Feyissa
Dori, Africa research director at the International Law and Policy Institute in
Norway, said in an e-mailed response to questions. While the opposition is
divided and unable to articulate alternative policies, they might gain “at
least some protest votes,” he said.
When Getahun joined Medrek, a
four-party bloc that forms the main opposition to the ruling EPRDF, his brother
Wondimu Abraham warned him he was risking trouble.
“I told him don’t be part of
Medrek, don’t get involved, as after a time you will face a problem,” Wondimu,
a 30-year- old member of the EPRDF who works at the main court in Gimbichu,
about 211 kilometers (131 miles) southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa, said in
an interview. Getahun grew depressed by the authorities’ denial of his repeated
requests to be transferred from the school in his family’s village of Humaro,
to Gimbichu, 7 kilometers away, Wondimu said.
The chief administrator in Gimbichu, Elias Ersado Benchamo, said
local officials weren’t aware of Getahun’s political activity and didn’t
receive any transfer requests. Getahun killed himself because he was lovesick,
isolated from his family or addicted to the stimulant khat, Elias said in an
interview on May 8.
Medrek members say they face
routine harassment by the authorities. The U.S., which backs the Ethiopian
army’s role in battling Al-Qaeda-linked militants in neighbouring Somalia, has
echoed United Nations’ condemnations of the government’s jailing of activists
and journalists.
Ethiopian officials say they
only prosecute activists and journalists who break the law.
The nation’s authorities have
used “multiple channels” to enforce “political control,” London-based Amnesty
International said in a February report. Steps include “politicizing access to
job and education opportunities.”
Getahun didn’t believe in the
ruling party’s success claims and often stopped people in the countryside to
talk about politics.
“He thought the EPRDF used
democracy as cosmetics,” Teshome said. “Internally they use dictatorship, and
their cover is democracy.”
About two weeks after Getahun’s
self-immolation, charred scraps of clothing still litter the grass at the
government compound. Nearby, he had left cash, a copy of the New Testament, a
suicide note and his Medrek membership card, his brother said.
In the five-page letter,
Getahun took responsibility for his actions and described his despair over
family issues and feelings of persecution.
“Being in politics shouldn’t
get you punished this much,” he wrote.
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