Former volunteer government informant Rahmat Hussein, is seen at her home in the northern Ethiopian town of Debark
Ethiopia’s surveillance network crumbles, meaning less fear and less control
By Maggie Fick
DEBARK, Ethiopia – Rahmat Hussein once inspired fear and respect for the watchful eye she cast over her Ethiopian neighborhood, keeping files on residents and recommending who should get a loan or be arrested.
Now she is mocked and ignored.
Her fall – from being the eyes and ears of one of Africa’s most repressive governments to a neighborhood punchline – illustrates how Ethiopia’s once ubiquitous surveillance network has crumbled.
“My work is harder now,” she said, wistfully. “People don’t listen anymore.”
Rahmat worked for a system set up by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition in the early 2000s, officially to help implement central policies across the country of 105 million people.
But the system, which detractors say was twisted into a tool to silence government critics, began to unravel with the outbreak of deadly protests in 2015 which undermined the EPRDF’s authority.
The election of reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has vowed to make society more open and took office in April 2018, has accelerated its decline. That has been welcomed by many.
“People were afraid and could not speak up,” said Agenagnew Abuhay, Rahmat’s colleague at a local women’s affairs office.
Others, like Rahmat, mourn its loss, saying the network drove advances in health, education and agriculture. It is widely acknowledged among Ethiopians as having played a significant role in society, although many are still too nervous to speak openly about it.
Some officials and academics question whether Abiy can control a restive population, amid outbreaks of deadly ethnic violence, and deliver promised economic and political reforms without the system he has allowed to fray.
“The local administration is collapsing in some places,” said one civil servant in the capital Addis Ababa, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with journalists.
“The government doesn’t seem to have much control.”
Abiy holds regular public meetings and is active on Twitter, said an official in the prime minister’s office, when asked how he would communicate with people now the old network has weakened. Most Ethiopian households do not have the internet.
The prime minister’s spokeswoman referred Reuters to the civil service commission for comment. Its head, Bezabih Gebreyes, said the system was formed for the “noble rationale” of development but acknowledged that ultimately it had been a failure.
“The structure was very active for at least five years,” he told Reuters. It failed, he said, because workers did not like taking orders from political appointees.
