Daily Times

Ethiopia’s army chief of staff and the regional president of the northern state of Amhara were killed in two related attacks when a general tried to seize control of Amhara in an attempted coup, the prime minister’s office said on Sunday.

Amhara state president Ambachew Mekonnen and his advisor were shot dead and the state’s attorney general was wounded in Amhara’s capital of Bahir Dar on Saturday evening, according to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

In a separate attack the same night, Ethiopia’s army Chief of Staff Seare Mekonnen and another retired general were shot dead in Seare’s home in Addis Ababa by his bodyguard. The two attacks were linked, the statement said, without giving details.

Abiy’s office named Amhara state security head General Asamnew Tsige as responsible for the failed coup, without giving details of his whereabouts. Asamnew was released from prison last year, having been given an amnesty for a similar coup attempt, according to media reports.

Abiy took office just over a year ago and embarked on unprecedented reforms in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country and one of its fastest-growing economies.

But the premier’s shake-up of the military and intelligence services has earned him powerful enemies, while his government is struggling to rein in powerful figures in Ethiopia’s myriad ethnic groups fighting the federal government and each other for greater influence and resources.

The shooting in Bahir Dar occurred when the state president – an ally of Abiy – was holding a meeting to decide how to put a stop to the open recruitment of ethnic Amhara militias by Asamnew. Asamnew had advised the Amhara people to arm themselves in preparation for fighting against other groups, in a video spread on Facebook a week earlier.

Abiy donned military fatigues to announce the attempted coup on state television on Saturday evening. Residents of Bahir Dar, about 500 kilometers (311 miles) northwest of Addis, said there was at least four hours of gunfire on Saturday evening and some roads had been closed off.

“The situation in the Amhara region is currently under full control by the Federal Government in collaboration with the regional government,” Abiy said in the statement on Sunday.

The US Embassy tweeted it had heard reports of gunfire in Addis Ababa on Saturday night, and some residents said they heard six shots in a suburb near the country’s Bole International Airport around 9:30 p.m. local time.

The capital was quieter than usual on Sunday, with fewer cars or pedestrians on the streets.

Earlier Brigadier General Tefera Mamo, the head of special forces in Amhara, told state television that “most of the people who attempted the coup have been arrested, although there are a few still at large.” He did not give details about Asamnew.

Since coming to power, Abiy has released political prisoners, removed bans on political parties and prosecuted officials accused of gross human rights abuses, but his government is battling ethnic bloodshed once held in check by the state’s iron grip.

Now some of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups are disputing the boundaries of the country’s nine federal states, or arguing that they too should have regional governments, claims that threaten the dominance of other groups. Amhara is home to Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group of the same name and their native tongue, Amharic, is also the country’s official language. The anti-government protests that lasted three years and eventually forced former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign in 2018 had begun in the neighboring state of Oromia but quickly spread to Amhara. Demonstrators were angered by grievances over land rights, political and economic marginalization – issues that Abiy is now racing to address. “He (Abiy) seems to be dismantling the EPRDF (ruling coalition) and is entertaining thoughts of altering the architecture of federalism, but he hasn’t given any clear direction he’s heading in,” said Matt Bryden, the head of regional thinktank Sahan Research.