(Dec 22, (The guardian))--From uneven development to authoritarian government, the morass of issues facing the city of Gondar offer a snapshot of Ethiopia’s wider problems. In Gondar, a city in Ethiopia’s northern highlands, a lone tourist pauses to take a photo of a fortress built more than two centuries ago. Nearby, past a row of gift shops, lies the wreck of a coach torched during unrest in August.
Gondar, known as “Africa’s Camelot”, was once the centre of the Ethiopian empire – at a time when that empire was defined mainly by Amhara traditions. Today, the city is facing new tensions that have a complex history. A territorial dispute between elites here in the Amhara region and those in neighboring Tigray has been simmering for at least 25 years.
Tigrayans have been accused by opponents of wielding undue influence over Ethiopia’s government and security agencies since 1991. In recent months, these and other grievances have led to protests, strikes, vandalism and killings in Gondar, causing a drastic reduction in foreign visitors to the tourism-dependent city and an exodus of fearful Tigrayans.
Shops and schools have reopened in Gondar, after the authorities reasserted control in urban areas by declaring a state of emergency on 8 October. But sporadic clashes with the military continue in the countryside. “We don’t feel like it is our country. We feel like it is the time when the Italians invaded. We are like second-class citizens,” says a prosperous local businessman. Like all interviewees, he requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals from the authorities. Europeans never colonised Ethiopia, but Mussolini’s army occupied the country from 1936 to 1941. Read more from The guardian »
Gondar, known as “Africa’s Camelot”, was once the centre of the Ethiopian empire – at a time when that empire was defined mainly by Amhara traditions. Today, the city is facing new tensions that have a complex history. A territorial dispute between elites here in the Amhara region and those in neighboring Tigray has been simmering for at least 25 years.
Tigrayans have been accused by opponents of wielding undue influence over Ethiopia’s government and security agencies since 1991. In recent months, these and other grievances have led to protests, strikes, vandalism and killings in Gondar, causing a drastic reduction in foreign visitors to the tourism-dependent city and an exodus of fearful Tigrayans.
Shops and schools have reopened in Gondar, after the authorities reasserted control in urban areas by declaring a state of emergency on 8 October. But sporadic clashes with the military continue in the countryside. “We don’t feel like it is our country. We feel like it is the time when the Italians invaded. We are like second-class citizens,” says a prosperous local businessman. Like all interviewees, he requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals from the authorities. Europeans never colonised Ethiopia, but Mussolini’s army occupied the country from 1936 to 1941. Read more from The guardian »
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