EOTC Chief negotiator Abune Abrham said Abiy "walked into the room with the three renegade bishops and handed them over to the holy synod" like POWs. It was Crystal clear the PM had conceded a defeat.
He was bailed out for his blunders in the last four years, but no one knows what the repercussions of this latest disaster will be.
Abiy Ahmed collapsed in his latest power adventure as the mighty Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church defeated his attempt to create a rival tribal synod using three renegade bishops. The attempt to divide and conquer the ancient and only non-governmental institution in Ethiopia under Abiy started in 2019 as the same three bishops gathered outlaws and non-EOTC members in and outside the Abiy government and formed the Oromia Betekihnet (clergy).
That first adventure was mainly led by Jawar Mohammed who is a Muslim hadji and grew up idolizing Jara Abageda leader of the IFLO, an Islamist militant group that waged a jihad to form the Islamic republic of Oromoia in the 90s. Hundreds of Oromo Christians were massacred by the group in Hararge and Arsi provinces.
When Jawar and Abiy fell out with each other following the violence & killing of pop star Hachalu Hundessa, Abiy's support for the Oromoya clergy quickly died. But the main reason Abiy gave up on the agenda at that time wasn't his rift with Jawar but the inevitable war with TPLF. The OPP chairman knew he needed a stronger anti-TPLF war coalition. By starting a new fire with EOTC, he didn't want to deplete that possible coalition.
Mind you, the church did not support any war or military campaign against anyone but there is a general understanding among the church's leadership & followers that TPLF's role in illegally excommunicating the late patriarch Abune Merkorios and installing a new pro-TPLF patriarch in 1991 was central. For that reason, the church leadership & base wouldn't rise up against Abiy in his campaign against the ousted rulers of Ethiopia. They would be neutral which Abiy took as a passive support.
The alliance worked out. The patriarch Abune Mathias was the only one vocal about the brutality of the war from the church's leadership. Then the TPLF was defeated on the back of Ethiopian nationalism which the church cultured for generations and the support of Eritrean army. The rebels signed a surrender agreement in Pretoria south Africa in late 2022. Taking the TPLF defeat as their own success, Abiy Ahmed & his OPP ruling clique felt it was time to consolidate power by crushing any major group that defies their orders.
Abiy's allies within the church like deacon Daniel Kibret could not help him in achieving full control over the last remaining independent institution in the country. The PM's rant to cabinet members about the bishops & the holy synod proved the church defied his orders and maintained its independence. Drugged by the prosperity gospel & angered by the defiance of the bishops, Abiy who thinks he can do everything miscalculated and openly turned his sword against the church.
To his surprise, the adventure quickly failed. The church organized its base and a few days into the skirmish, several people were killed by Shimals Abdisa's troops in Oromoia and the feeling in the capital Addis Ababa looked like the Abiy regime was collapsing. After millions flooded the streets wearing black outfit instructed by the church, Abiy sent his troops to major streets in Addis Ababa. They banned followers from going to church on Sunday. The streets smelt like May 1991. The prime minster quickly realized his seat was under threat.
Calling the EOTC leadership for talk
Abiy knew he had failed miserably, and the crisis brings huge ramifications for his already embattled reign. The EOTC negotiator Abune Abrham said Abiy walked into the Synod office with the three renegade bishops and handed them over to the patriarch like POWs. He was quoted as saying "father, I found the lost sheep". It was clear for the PM, the mission had failed, and he was severely embarrassed.
It's the wishes of many Ethiopians that this disaster will teach him a lesson his adventurous journey has put the country back on the gates of hell. He should pause and look back.
Miscalculations after Miscalculations
Abiy came to power on the back of pro-democracy protests in Oromoya & Amhara provinces between 2015 and 2018. He was elected as OPDO chair & then prime minster of Ethiopia with the okay of ANDM, the Amhara wing of TPLF/EPRDF. American writer & historian Robert Greene says stupidity is knowing half and taking serious actions as if you knew the whole story. Thats exactly what Abiy Ahmed has been doing in the last four years.
His miscalculations in existential issues like the fate of TPLF costed the country dearly with an all-out civil war in Tigray & genocide-like mass killings in the other ethnic regions mainly his own Oromia. Yes, he was in the army, but it doesn't mean he's an expert in military science. Yes, he wrote a book or two but that doesn't make him a great speaker or speech writer. He claimed his mother used to take him to an Orthodox Church when he was young. He thought he knew the church, but he did not.
The prime Minister and his close individuals like the Oromo governor Shimals Abdisa are all drugged by prosperity gospel, a dangerous belief system that combines power, money and religion. For them, the death of over a million in four years under their watch is simply part of the ritual. They don't care about human lives; they don't see what sane people see. Death and destruction is part of the "prosperity gospel's spiritual journey.
Joseph Stalin couldn't believe Hitler would invade USSR while the Nazi leader was already at war with UK & France. It was unbelievable he would start another front without completing the western campaign.
The actions of Abiy & his OPP hardliners mirror the Nazi leader's move. It's chaos after chaos. It's opening new battle fronts everywhere without completing the ones already started. They will end up like the Nazi leader.
The country's paying in human lives and an economic disaster. We hope his failed adventure against EOTC would serve as a wakeup call not just for him but for those silently waiting for the PM to do his miracles & save the country.
All concerned Ethiopians should wake up and form an all-inclusive pro-democracy coalition. Abiy is not a reformer. He's a prosperity gospel addict and mentally not okay.