IN recent years, it seemed everything the Horn of Africa nations of Ethiopia and Djibouti touched turned into gold of some sort. Ethiopia, Africa's second largest country by population after Nigeria, and has notched up Africa's fastest growth – nearly 10%, according to the International Monetary Fund. It's also a regional military power, and has troops keeping the peace in neighbour Somalia as part of the African Union force AMISOM. Djibouti is one of Africa's smallest countries, with a population of about 880,000 people. But few countries in Africa are as ambitious or punch above their weight as Djibouti. Thanks to having some of the continent's most competent governments, and the advantage of the authoritarian ruling parties having near total monopoly of power and thus less distracted by the noise of opponents or the constraints of liberal democracy, they are among Africa's infrastructure kings. In June 2015, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia and Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh launched a 752-kilometre (481-mile) railway linking their two capitals, Addis Ababa and Djibouti City, respectively. The new line is partly the resurrection of an old one, built in 1917 by the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company, but decades later it fell into disrepair and only worked erratically. The two countries envision the railway as a step towards a trans-continental line reaching all the way to the Gulf of Guinea, in West Africa. In addition, Djibouti is building six new ports and two airports in the hope of becoming the commercial hub of East Africa. For its part, in September 2015, Ethiopia inaugurated the country's first, and sub-Saharan Africa's second, first light rail system. With a price tag of $474 million, it can carry 15,000 people per hour in one direction, a big relief for Addis Ababa's population of nearly 4 million. No confetti for the chiefs When a government in a poor country logs in these kinds of record, one would expect citizens would be lining to spray their leaders with confetti. However for Ethiopia and Djibouti, the roots of growing internal tension lies exactly in these successes – especially the method in which they have been achieved. In November and early December, Ethiopia's rapid economic growth clashed with hard political reality pitting the government against members of its largest ethnic group, the Oromo, more than 80 of whom have allegedly been killed in recent protests. Demonstrations by Oromo residents against plans for the expansion of Addis Ababa have rocked at least 30 towns and prompted more than 500 arrests since Nov. 19, said the Oromo Federalist Congress, an opposition group. The rare unrest highlights the conflict between Ethiopia's authoritarian development model and its system of federalism, which guarantees the rights of more than 80 ethnicities. Planners estimate the population of Addis Ababa and five Oromo satellite towns will more than double to 8.1 million by 2040 and require developing an area 20 times the current boundaries of the capital. Addis Ababa was an Oromo village before it was conquered by Emperor Menelik II in 1886, who then imposed the Amharic language. Ever since, the city has expanded to displace Oromo farmers, sometimes violently. And the Oromo complain they are not adequately compensated.
