/ 26 March 2001

DISSIDENT GROUP QUASHED IN ETHIOPIA

A DISSIDENT movement within Ethiopia’s ruling party seeking to “wreak havoc” has been quashed, says Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The dissidents, opposed to Meles’ increasingly liberal economics and his post-war stance on Eritrea, included several heavyweights from the northern Tigray region bordering Eritrea who were suspended from the central committee of the TPLF, a former rebel movement which is now the main party in the multi-ethnic EPRDF coalition formed in 1989. – AFP