By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA Aug 5 (Reuters) - Two protesters died in clashes with police in
Ethiopia's ancient city of Gonder on Friday, campaigners said, as anger mounted
over the status of a disputed territory - a highly-charged issue in a nation
made up of a patchwork of ethnic groups.
Violence broke out as police brought
one of the leaders of a land campaign movement to court, according to one
person who said he had been in the crowd and asked to remain anonymous.
Amhara region president Gedu
Andargachew did not mention any deaths but told journalists the protests were
illegal and said security services would take measures against anyone who took
part.
Any sign of unrest is closely
watched in Ethiopia, a major Western ally against Islamist militants in
neighbouring Somalia and an economic power seen as a centre of relative
stability in a fragile region.
"Two protesters were shot and
killed in Piassa," said one campaigner by phone, referring to a central
district in the city.
Clashes carried on into the evening,
said another, a rare public protest in a country whose government has been
accused of cracking down on dissent. Roads were blocked and access to social
media limited, he added.
Tensions have been rumbling for
around 25 years over the status of Wolkayt district - a stretch of land that
protesters from Amhara say was illegally incorporated into the neighbouring
Tigray region to the north.
The issue boiled over into violence
two weeks ago when crowds came out in Gonder saying they were protesting
against an attempt to arrest Wolkayt campaigners.
Government
spokesman Getachew Reda said at the time six policemen were killed by the
protesters and accused an "illegal committee" of stoking ethnic
untest.
The dispute, while centred on a
relatively small patch of land, is particularly sensitive because it challenges
a division of Ethiopia along ethnic and linguistic lines, imposed by the core
of the current ruling EPRDF coalition when it came to power in 1991.
After toppling Mengistu Haile
Mariam's Marxist military dictatorship, the former rebels set up the boundaries
that they said would recognise the country's different groups and prevent any
one from dominating the others through a system of so-called ethnic federalism.
Protesters in Gonder - known as
Africa's Camelot because of its ancient castles - say they had finally decided
to take to the streets because they had got nowhere with years of petitioning
senior officials, arguing that the Amharic-speaking people of Wolkayt belonged
in Amhara.
The protests in the region come in
the wake of months of unrest in the central Oromiya province, where
demonstrators objected to having land incorporated into the boundaries of the
capital Addis Ababa.
The government was subsequently
forced to scrap that plan. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Andrew
Heavens)
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