Since he was sworn in as prime minister in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed’s relationship with the military has been a prickly issue. Historically, the military establishment has played a major role in Ethiopian politics, be it by reinforcing the government or toppling it. By observing Ahmed’s policies Ethiopia’s political future can be assessed more accurately and comprehensively through a number of primary features:
First: Frequent changes of military leadership
Unlike in the past three decades, the Ethiopian military leadership has witnessed frequent changes during the two and a half years of Ahmed’s rule. The meeting of the Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Democratic Front on 5 June 2018 was the beginning of Ahmed’s involvement in the affairs of the military establishment. The meeting was followed by changes within the higher ranks of the military.
In the presence of Ahmed and the president of the republic, General Samora Muhammad Yunus, who had held the position of Chief of General Staff of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces since 2001, was honoured and replaced General Se’are Mekonnen, who had previously held the position of head of the Army’s Northern Command and head of the Training Authority of the Ethiopian Armed Forces. The termination of the services of Getachew Assefa as the head of the National Security and Intelligence Service, in office since 2001, was announced. Assefa was replaced by General Adam Muhammad. The move reflected the Intelligence Service’s association with the military establishment, which was also confirmed through the appointment of military leaders to head the Intelligence Service.
Changing the military leadership reflected a lot of caution on the part of Abiy Ahmed. The changes did not indicate he abandoned the traditional balances adopted by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front between ethnic groups that give the Tigray many advantages that far outweigh their numbers. Ahmed’s changes were meant to strengthen these balances. Since 1991, the Tigray have controlled the highest military posts, at the forefront of which is the position of Chief of Staff. After Major General Tsadkan Gebretensae held the position following the fall of Mengistu in 1991 and until 2001. Yunus took over until 2018. The change of military leadership during Ahmed’s reign is seen as a continuation of the same trend, as Se’are Mikkonen held the chief of staff position to become the third consecutive Tigray to hold the post.
These changes were lauded, especially as they strike another balance between the Ethiopian components. In light of the presence of Ahmed as the Prime Minister, General Yunus, a Muslim, was removed from his post; and a Christian Orthodox came to office, to even out positions among the major religious groups in Ethiopia.
However, the mysterious assassination of Se’are Mikkonen in June 2019 forced Ahmed to make another military. The change brought Adam Muhammad, who belongs to the Amhara group, to the position of Chief of Staff. Muhammad became the first non-Tigray Chief of Staff since the fall of Mengistu in 1991.
The position of Minister of Defence also witnessed successive changes in a short period of time. In Ahmed’s first cabinet, formed in April 2018, Motuma Mekassa of the Oromo group was assigned the Minister of Defence for six months before being replaced by Aisha Muhammad of the Afar group, who continued in her position for six months that ended in April 2019. Lemma Megersa, the prominent European politician, came to office. He was dismissed following his dispute with Ahmed in August 2020. Megersa was replaced by Kenea Yadeta, from the Oromo.
This unprecedented instability of the Ethiopian Chiefs of Staff and Defence Ministers in their positions is indicative of the mistrust between Ahmed and the military establishment on the one hand, and the failure to deeply change the institution, which led Ahmed to continue to shuffle military leaderships.
Second: Failure to restructure the military
Ahmed sought to bring about a number of institutional changes to the armed forces, the main goal of which was to tighten his control over the institution or at least neutralize its influence on the political scene.
Ahmed’s efforts followed the rebellion of the Special Forces in October 2018. A week after the incident, Ahmed delivered a speech in the Ethiopian Parliament in which he commented on the Special Forces’ movement as “unconstitutional and illegal” and that it was aimed at “scuppering reforms in Ethiopia”.
In the wake of this incident, the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s repeatedly tried to restructure the Ethiopian armed forces to control the establishment and ensure it will not threaten the political stage. Among the early indications was the establishment of a new branch of the Special Forces, named the “Republican Guard”, which would provide the necessary protection to senior officials, prominent among whom is the Prime Minister.
However, the rebellion of the Special Forces and the assassination of the Chief of Staff in June 2019 revealed the severe manifestations of weakness in the military establishment, which is represented by the absence of discipline, politicization and the domination of ethnic loyalties. The two incidents revealed severe multi-dimensional deterioration that strikes the military establishment, especially with the continued state of apprehension over a possible interference by the establishment in the political scene, and the outbreak of violent protests in the country, similar to those of October 2019 and July 2020.
Third: Reducing military activity by constraining it economically
On 10 November 2018, the Ethiopian authorities arrested a number of army officers in executive positions in the Metal and Engineering Corporation (METEC) of the Ethiopian Armed Forces, and a number of intelligence officers, during their meeting at one of the company’s headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa.
On 12 November, the Ethiopian Prosecutor-General announced the arrest of 27 officers from METEC on charges of corruption. Another 36 officers working in the armed forces, intelligence and police forces were also arrested on charges of committing serious human rights violations. The Prosecutor-General also accused a number of intelligence officers of issuing orders to attack the Prime Minister in June, in the attack that took place in Meskel Square, with the aim of inflaming ethnic tensions between Ethiopian groups. In addition, he indicated that a high-ranking intelligence official had coordinated with some Oromos the attempt on Ahmed’s life, who is also an Oromo.
The following day, the Ethiopian authorities announced the arrest of Brigadier General Kinfe Dagnew, the former CEO of METEC, near the borders with Eritrea. The incident was followed by the official Ethiopian channels launching a media campaign to expose the corruption in METEC, which included the disclosure of detailed information on financial corruption, in addition to accusing the company officials of engaging in illegal activities with the acquisition of two ships belonging to the Ethiopian Navy (after their dissolution) and their use in smuggling weapons to internationally embargoed countries, such as Somalia and Iran.
In such manner, Ahmed’s campaign against the companies affiliated with the military reflects his desire to limit the scope of the establishment’s work to security without it participating in economic activities. His aim was to limit the military’s influence on the political field in the future – a primal concern for Ahmed.
Fourth: The excessive deployment of the Armed Forces
Former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn adopted direct confrontational policies with protest movements since 2015, in which the military played the most prominent role in light of the impotence of federal security institutions and the bias of regional police in many cases towards people’s movements.
Since coming to power, Ahmed has adopted policies that were meant to reduce the pressure on the military establishment by reducing its tasks, whether by keeping tranquillity on the Ethiopian-Eritrean borders following the signing of a peace agreement, or by lifting the state of emergency. However, in the face of unstable conditions at home and abroad, Ahmed was forced to order the armed forces to overstretch, doubling the burdens on the military’s shoulders.
On the ground, there are multiple ethnic conflicts between the different Ethiopian groups, which made Ethiopia the largest country in the world in terms of the number of displaced persons, as well as the deployment of military elements in cases of violent protests taking place in multiple regions of the country, especially the Oromia region. The role of the military establishment was not limited to these aspects. During the recent clashes that took place in April and May 2020 between armed groups belonging to the Amhara group and Sudanese farmers in the Sudanese area of Fashaqa bordering with Ethiopia, the armed forces were relied on to provide support for armed groups, according to what was announced by the official spokesman of the Sudanese Armed Forces.
While it was expected that the pressure on the military establishment would ease after the Ethiopian government signed a number of agreements with armed movements, such as the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden Liberation Front, these agreements represented a new burden on the armed forces. The burden was in overseeing the implementation of the disarmament provisions, which required direct intervention on 13 January 2019, including air strikes that targeted the camps of the armed wing of the Oromo Liberation Front in the west of Oromia. Those camps were established by a number of fighters returning from exile in Eritrea and who are accused of involvement in criminal activities, including the robbery of 18 bank branches in Oromia. The air strikes were followed by the launch of a massive security operation that resulted in the arrest of 835 fighters belonging to the front in the apparent absence of the federal police and the regional police.
Even peace with Eritrea did not reduce the burden of the Ethiopian armed forces, but rather made it more complicated. While border units withdrew – a condition agreed upon with Eritrea to open borders between the two countries and establish peace – Tigray youth intercepted army trucks carrying soldiers. The incident pitted the armed forces – instead of political institutions – in the face of Tigray protests rejecting the peace deal with Eritrea.
In all, Abiy Ahmed’s policies towards the military reflected a strong connection with Ethiopian traditions established prior to his coming to power. Ahmed maintained the rules of selecting military leaders that he inherited from his predecessors, Zenawi and Desalegn, and his increasing dependence on the military establishment to deal with his domestic political and social problems. This contradictory situation renders Ahmed cornered between his increasing dependence on the military and his desire to control it at a time Ethiopia is suffering from exceptional turmoil.
