New sign of appeasement in Ethiopia. The government on Thursday (March 23rd) appointed a senior member of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel movement to head the region's interim regional government, months after the peace agreement ended two years of bloody civil war.
"Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appointed Getachew Reda as interim chairman of the Tigray Region administration," Ahmed's office said in a statement posted on Twitter. Getachew Reda was previously a spokesman for the TPLF.
The day before, Ethiopian MPs had removed the TPLF from the list of terrorist entities, a new major step in the implementation of the peace agreement that the rebel movement signed with the Ethiopian government last November in Pretoria.
"Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appointed Getachew Reda as interim chairman of the Tigray Region administration," Abiy Ahmed's office said in a statement posted on Twitter.
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The TPLF, a party long marginalized
Getachew Reda, adviser to TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael, was previously the movement's spokesman.
Wednesday's lifting of the terrorist designation paved the way for the establishment of an interim administration in Tigray led by the TPLF, as provided for in the peace agreement.
Long all-powerful, the TPLF effectively governed Ethiopia for three decades before being gradually marginalized when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in 2018, thanks to several months of popular protest.
The rebel movement had been classified as terrorist by Ethiopian authorities since May 6, 2021, six months after the start of the war in Tigray.
Before the war, Getachew Reda was Minister of Information in the Ethiopian federal government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn between 2012 and 2018.
With AFP
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