By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press
– ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's long-time ruler
who held tight control over this East African country but was a major
U.S counter-terrorism ally, died of an undisclosed illness after not
being seen in public for weeks, Ethiopian authorities announced Tuesday.
He was 57.
Meles died Monday just before midnight after contracting an infection, state TV said.
Hailemariam
Desalegn, who was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of
foreign affairs in 2010, became acting prime minister and will be sworn
in as prime minister after an emergency meeting of parliament, said
Bereket Simon, the communications minister. Parliament is controlled by
Meles' ruling party and governing coalition, ensuring Hailemariam will
be approved. No new elections will be scheduled, Bereket said.
Bereket
did not say where Meles died, only that he was abroad for medical
treatment. Officials had expected Meles to return to Ethiopia but a
sudden complication reversed what had been a good recovery, he said.
A European Union spokesman said that Meles died in Brussels.
Meles
hadn't been seen in public for about two months. In mid-July, after
Meles did not attend a meeting of heads of state of the African Union in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, speculation increased that his health
problems were serious. Ethiopian officials gave no details and said the
prime minister was in "very good" health and would return to office
soon, but international officials said quietly it was unlikely he would
recover.
State TV on Tuesday showed pictures of Meles as classical
music played in the background. Simon called the death shocking and
devastating. The country's council of ministers declared a national day
of mourning.
Opponents of Meles accuse him of killing and jailing
opposition members and of rigging elections. Ethiopia's Somalia
community in particular has suffered under Meles, who won his last
election in 2010 with a reported 99 percent of the vote.
Jose
Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, offered his
condolences to the Ethiopian people, praising Meles' development work
and calling him "a respected African leader." But he also expressed
concern about the state of democracy in the country.
"I sincerely
hope that Ethiopia will enhance its path of democratization, upholding
of human rights and prosperity for its people, and of further regional
stabilization and integration," Barroso said in a statement.
Born
on May 8, 1955, Meles became president in 1991 after helping to oust
Mengistu Haile Mariam's Communist military junta, which was responsible
for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian deaths. Meles became prime
minister in 1995, a position that is both the head of the federal
government and armed forces.
The U.S. has long viewed Meles as a
strong security partner and has given hundreds of millions of dollars in
aid over the years. U.S. military drones that patrol East Africa —
especially over Somalia — are stationed in Ethiopia. The U.S. goal for
Somalia — a stable government free of radical Islamists — is in line
with Ethiopia's hopes.
Though a U.S. ally, Ethiopia has long been
criticized by human rights groups for the government's strict control,
and Meles' legacy is likely to be mixed: positive on the economic
development side and negative on the human rights side, said Leslie
Lefkow, the deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Africa.
Meles
brought Ethiopia out of a hugely difficult period following Mengistu's
rule and made important economic progress, she said, but the ruling
party has been too focused on building its own authority in recent years
instead of building up government institutions.
"I think on the
human rights side his legacy will be much more questionable. The country
remains under a very tightly controlled one-party rule and this will be
the challenge for the new leadership, to take advantage of the
opportunity that his death presents in terms of bringing Ethiopia into a
more human rights-friendly, reform-minded style of leadership," Lefkow
said.
During Meles' election win in 2005, when it appeared the
opposition was likely to make gains, Meles tightened security across the
country, and on the night of the election he declared a state of
emergency, outlawing any public gathering as his ruling party claimed a
majority win. Opposition members accused Meles of rigging the election,
and demonstrations broke out. Security forces moved in, killing hundreds
of people and jailing thousands.
In 2010 Meles won another five
years in office while receiving a reported 99 percent of the vote in an
election that the U.S. and other international observers said did not
meet international standards.
Meles was the leader of a political
coalition known as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic
Front. He was also the longtime chairman of the Tigray People's
Liberation Front and has always identified strongly with his party.
"I
cannot separate my achievements from what can be considered as the
achievements of the ruling party. Whatever achievement there might have
been, it does not exist independent of that party," Meles once said when
asked what he thought would be his legacy.
Under Meles, Ethiopia
saw strong gains in the education sector with the construction of new
schools and universities. Women gained more rights. And in the mid-2000s
Ethiopia saw strong economic growth, which won Meles international
praise. The International Monetary Fund in 2008 said Ethiopia's economy
had grown faster than any non-oil exporting country in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Despite those gains, Ethiopia remains heavily dependent on
agriculture, which accounts for 85 percent of the country's employment.
Per capita income is only about $1,000, or roughly $3 a day.
Though
he won accolades for economic progress, human rights groups have long
denounced Meles' government for its use of arbitrary detention, torture,
and surveillance of opposition members inside Ethiopia. The ONLF, an
opposition group that mostly consists of ethnic Somalis, has openly
clashed with the government, including in 2007 when Ethiopia sent troops
to Somalia to fight al-Shabab militants.
The ONLF said Tuesday
that Meles' death is an opportunity for a new government to "initiate a
new era of peace, stability, freedom and justice for the people of
Ogaden and not to pursue the failed policies of the past."
At the
end of 2006, Somalia's U.N.-backed government asked Ethiopia to send
troops into Somalia to try to put down an Islamist insurgency. Ethiopian
troops moved into the country and captured Mogadishu, but the Somali
population rebelled against what it saw as an occupation and Ethiopian
forces withdrew in 2009.
Ethiopia again sent troops to Somalia in
early 2012 as part of an increased international effort to pressure
al-Shabab. Uganda, Burundi and Kenya all have thousands of troops in a
coalition under the African Union, though Ethiopia's forces are not part
of the coalition.
Earlier in Meles' tenure, from 1998-2000,
Ethiopia fought a border war with Eritrea, a conflict that resulted in
tens of thousands of deaths.
Meles grew up in the northern town of
Adwa, where his father had 13 siblings from multiple women. He moved to
the capital, Addis Ababa, on a scholarship after completing an
eight-year elementary education in just five.
Meles is survived by his wife, Azeb Mesfin, a member of parliament, with whom he had three children.
State TV said funeral arrangements would be announced soon.
