Murder could prompt crackdown
2001-05-13 13:38
Addis Ababa - The murder of Ethiopia's powerful intelligence chief is a blow to government efforts to quash recent political instability and may provoke a tightening of state security in the Horn of Africa country, analysts say.
An army major fired four bullets into the back of Kinfe
Gebremedhin at an officers' club on Saturday, at a stroke
robbing the state of the key official responsible for restoring
order after the bloodiest civil unrest in years last month.
"I expect the government to take extra steps to ensure the
situation does not get out of hand," said Kinfe Abraham, chief
political adviser to Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin.
"The survival of the nation is at stake, and, at least for
a period, our officials will take more precautions. There has
been some laxity in security," he added.
Kinfe Gebremedhin had headed the Federal Security and
Immigration Authority since the ruling Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power in 1991.
Kinfe, whose job put him in charge of the intelligence services, provided the organisational muscle for the government's tough security response to student unrest in Addis Ababa last month in which dozens of people were killed.
Hundreds of opposition activists and youths accused of
looting remain in detention following a crackdown organised by
Kinfe in the wake of the riots.
The government put the death toll from the unrest at 31.
Medical sources put it at 41.
His departure is a heavy loss for Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi, his friend and ally in solving political disputes
within the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the main faction
in the EPRDF, and in maintaining internal security during a
two-year war with neighbouring Eritrea that ended last year.
Residents and analysts say they expect the initial state
response to Kinfe's death may be an expanded version of the
security sweep launched last month following the disturbances.
That crackdown continued last week with the arrest of the
country's most prominent human rights activist, Mesfin
Woldemariam, a professor at Addis Ababa university.
But analysts say initial indications are the riots and the
subsequent crackdown appear not to have been the catalysts for
the assassination.
Splits within TPLF
While the investigation into the killing is at an early
stage - Major Tsehaye Woldeselassie was arrested after the
shooting and is in custody - it points to simmering political
differences inside the formerly Marxist TPLF as the likeliest
motive.
"Kinfe was a major player within the TPLF," said Patrick
Gilkes, a British-based specialist on Ethiopia.
"His assassination can be seen as the latest in a series of
indications that the TPLF is not nearly the monolithic body it
was assumed to be."
One government official who declined to be identified said
Tsehaye was in charge of arms procurement for the army and a
key suspect in allegations of corruption inside sections of the
TPLF being investigated by senior party officials.
"Corruption has been a bone of contention inside the party,
which is examining evidence of wrongdoing as a prelude to purging
anyone whose record is dubious," the official said.
Kinfe and Tsehaye had both taken part in a TPLF meeting on
Friday at which a "misunderstanding" had arisen, the government
official said without elaborating.
When Kinfe arrived at the Armed Forces Officers' club on Saturday to chair another such meeting, he was greeted by Tsehaye who then pulled out a gun and shot the security chief
in the back as he walked on past him.
Another theory doing the rounds of Ethiopia-watchers is
that the killing could have been a grudge killing by Tsehaye,
who analysts say may have nursed some kind of personal
grievance.
Whatever the truth, Kinfe's removes a strong government
ally at a time when TPLF leaders are facing challenges from
TPLF dissidents which burst into the open earlier this year.
The dissidents are angry at the government's handling of
the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea, among other issues, accusing the
government of not taking a firm enough line with Asmara.
The government has also been under fire for weeks from
opposition groups and some newspapers over what diplomats call
its heavy-handed security response to the unrest last month.
"A democratic government discharges its duties according to
the law. It is the law that provides the rules of engagement,
not the whim of officials," the Reporter newspaper said. "When
the rule of law is scoffed at, democracy stands on its head."
- Reuters