From January 24 to 26, 2016, Mekelle was given a rare chance to host a high-profile African Union’s Ministerial meeting; Tigray’s President Abay Woldu and Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom (also hailing from Tigray himself) hosted the AU delegates in the northernmost major city of Ethiopia – Mekelle, which is located in the Tigray National Regional State and has gotten a significant importance over the last quarter of a century, since the Tigrayan’s People Liberation Front (TPLF), after organizing itself in Tigray, took over state power in Addis Ababa, the seat of the AU, to control the whole Ethiopia in 1991.
Over the last 25 years, Mekelle has transformed from a dusty town, where the regional rundown bus-stop had been the only hub in town, to a major city with significant improvements, including the building of an international airport and several hotels. Critics of TPLF’s elites, while welcoming the development of Mekelle, accuse the Ethiopian government of promoting uneven development, one which has preferably promoted the growth of the hometown of the ruling party while ignoring the rest. Especially, residents in Addis have long charged TPLF with ignoring the Capital City. And, when TPLF’s elites, as the only policymakers of the country – they decide where the money goes, do show some interests to develop other areas, they come with their double-standard exclusionary policies, the critics say. They say the government needs even and all-inclusive development policies.
The critics accuse TPLF’s elites of showing double-standards on development policies for the rest of the country vs. Tigray, especially Mekelle. While the hallmark of the Ethiopian government’s development in Tigray has been its inclusive policy towards local/indigenous Tigrayans; development projects in other parts of the country are significantly affected by their exclusionary tendencies towards the indigenous people of the non-Tigray National Regional States, such as the infamous Master Plan, agro-industrial projects, hydro-electric dam buildings, gas/mineral explorations and mining, and industrial zone developments in Oromia, Sidama (Hawassa)/South, Benishangul, the Afar, Ogaden and Gambella – almost all of the projects in the non-Tigray States are marred with reports of land-grabbing, evictions, abuses of human rights, and dispossession of the Oromo, the Sidama, the Ogaden, the Afar, the Berta, the Gumuz, the Anuak, and the Omo tribes, among others. In Addis Ababa, old-time residents of the city, mostly those not affiliated with the ruling party (TPLF/EPRDF), are being internally displaced towards the outskirts of the city – through waves of gentrification-type projects in the Capital. Tourists and foreign journalists only report the “growth of Addis” without understanding the socio-economical changes being effected by the government’s gentrification projects. The tourists and foreign journalists report as if the development in Addis is owned by old-time residents of the city; to the contrary, old-time residents of the city resent the ongoing gentrification projects as they have been forced to give up their prime lands in the center of the city, and the development comes at the expense of their social ties to their old neighborhoods through such social institutions as Edir, Ekub and Mehiber; most feel as refugees in Addis. In addition, in their new places on the outskirts of Addis, they have to pay hefty 30-year mortgages, which they had previously never had; most are residents with incomes below or around the poverty-line – who are struggling to make ends meet daily, and now they have to pay 30-year mortgages to banks which are mostly owned by TPLF elites and their affiliates. Either they sign up for the 30-year mortgages or lose their new homesteads (the condominiums), after being evicted from their long-time residences in the center of the city.
Overall, the public in Tigray feels and takes complete ownership of the inclusive development activities in the State; however, locals of other States feel both their resources and their labors are owned and exploited by TPLF’s elites and, some even liken the relationship between TPLF’s elites and the non-Tigray States to a colonial arrangement. The Oromo Protests, which are being waged against the lack of adequate self-rule for Oromia (of which the Master Plan is an example), and the decades-old marginalization of the Oromo people in the political, economic, social, linguistic and cultural spheres in Ethiopia as a whole, come with this political and socio-economic dynamics in the country.
While at the Africa-level, the hosting of AU Ministerial meeting in Mekelle, arguably the second largest city in Ethiopia, may not matter; at the local level, it signals the usurping of Mekelle over Addis Ababa over time.
News on the AU Mekelle Summit and some photos from the Mekelle AU meeting:
