Ethiopia orders people back to work

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 6

Ethiopia orders people back to work

NZPA-ReuterAddis Ababa

Ethiopia’s Marxist Government ordered people to return to work yesterday after crushing an attempted coup in the capita! against President Mengistu Haile Mariam. But rebels fighting the Government in northern Ethiopia said dissident officers controlling an estimated 150,000 troops in Eritrea province were still in revolt.

President Mengistu, who had left for an official visit to East Germany when the coup attempt began on Tuesday, cut short his stay and returned to Addis Ababa on Wednesday, according to an Ethiopian radio report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Diplomats and other residents in Addis Ababa reported some fighting on Wednesday, but the city was quiet by nightfall and State radio and television urged people to return to work yesterday.

Schools and Government offices were closed on Wednesday and troops guarded key installations in the capital, but many shops and bars were open and the streets were full of people.

State television said the Government had received declarations of support from official associations of workers, peasants, women and youth, but it did not comment on the military situation outside Addis Ababa. Officials of the rebel Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (E.P.L.F.) said in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that dissident officers controlling 12 Army divisions had seized control in Eritrea. The E.P.L.F. officials said the officers were appealing over local radio for a ceasefire in Ethiopia’s long-running civil war, formation of a broad-based provisional Government and moves towards democracy.

The E.P.L.F. and its ally, the Tigray People’s

Liberation Front, have been gaining steadily against Government forces in northern Ethiopia for the past 17 months.

Diplomats in Addis Ababa said in Nairobi by telephone that discontent with the war in the north appeared to be the main reason behind Tuesday’s coup attempt. Ethiopian State television described it as “an attempt to undermine the revolution.”

Since coming to power at the head of a military Government in 1977, President Mengistu has imposed Soviet-style socialism on Ethiopia and established close links with Moscow.

Two coup leaders, Major-General Merid Negusie, chief of staff of the armed forces, and air force chief Major-General Amha Desta died in fighting at the Defence Ministry on Tuesday afternoon and Ethiopian State radio said several other generals had been arrested.