ADDIS ABABA : Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, regarded by the West as a bulwark against Islamic militancy, died overnight in a Brussels hospital after a long battle with illness.
Speculation that Meles, 57, an ally of Washington who twice sent troops into neighboring Somalia to help crush rebellions, was seriously ill had grown after he failed to attend an African Union summit in Addis Ababa last month.
State media said Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn would be sworn in as acting prime minister by parliament.
“The prime minister passed away around midnight. It’s time for his remains to come back,” government spokesman and Meles’ right-hand-man, Bereket Simon, told reporters on Tuesday.
Bereket said Meles had been ill for a year and was recuperating before being suddenly rushed to intensive care. Meles seized power in 1991 from Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military junta and went on to become a towering political figure on the continent who was widely credited for steering one of the world’s poorest countries to high economic growth.
Although rights groups criticized him for cracking down hard on dissent, the West generally turned a blind eye to the repression, reluctant to pick a fight with a partner in the fight against al Qaeda-linked groups in Africa.
British Prime Minister David Cameron hailed Meles as an “inspirational spokesman for Africa”.
“His personal contribution to Ethiopia’s development, in particular by lifting millions of Ethiopians out of poverty, has set an example for the region,” Cameron said. The secretive government refused to reveal where he was being treated or the nature of his illness but a European Union source said he died in Brussels where he had been a patient at the Saint-Luc University Hospital.
Somalia’s al Shabaab militants, who encountered Ethiopian troops twice under Meles’ tenure, once in 2006-2009 and again from December 2011, hailed the former leader’s death. (Reuters)
