Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi dies at 57

Ethiopia's long-time ruler who held tight control over this East African country but was a major U.S counter-terrorism ally, died of an undisclosed illness after not being seen in public for weeks, Ethiopian authorities announced Tuesday. He was 57. Meles died Monday just before midnight after contracting an infection, state TV said. Hailemariam Desalegn, who was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in 2010, became acting prime minister and will be sworn in as prime minister after an emergency meeting of parliament,said Bereket Simon, the communications minister. Parliament is controlled by Meles' ruling party and governing coalition, ensuring Hailemariam will be approved. No new elections will be scheduled, Bereket said. Bereket did not say where Meles' died, only that he was abroad for medical treatment. Officials had expected Meles to return to Ethiopia but a sudden complication reversed what had been a good recovery, he said. Meles hadn't been seen in public for about two months. In mid-July,after Meles did not attend a meeting of heads of state of the African Union in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia's capital, speculation increased that his health problems were serious. Ethiopian officials gave no details and said the prime minister was in "very good" health and would return to office soon, but international officials said quietly it was unlikelyhe would recover. State TV on Tuesday showed pictures of Meles as classical music played in the background. Simon called the death shocking and devastating. The country's council of ministers declared a national day of mourning. Born on May 8, 1955, Meles became president in 1991 after helping to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam's Communist military junta, which was responsible for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian deaths. Meles became prime minister in 1995, a positionthat is both the head of the federal government and armed forces. The U.S. has long viewed Meles as a strong security partner and has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over the years. U.S. military drones that patrol East Africa — especially over Somalia — are stationed in Ethiopia. The U.S. goal for Somalia — a stable government free of radical Islamists — is in line with Ethiopia's hopes. Though a U.S. ally, Ethiopia has long been criticized by human rights groups for the government's strict control, and Meles' legacy is likely to be mixed: positive on the economic development side and negative onthe human rights side, said Leslie Lefkow, the deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Africa. Meles brought Ethiopia out of a hugely difficult period following Mengistu's rule and made important economic progress, shesaid, but the ruling party has beentoo focused on building its own authority in recent years instead of building up government institutions. "I think on the human rights side his legacy will be much more questionable. The country remains under a very tightly controlled one-party rule and this will be the challenge for the new leadership, to take advantage of the opportunity that his death presents in terms of bringing Ethiopia into a more human rights-friendly, reform-minded style of leadership," Lefkow said. During Meles' election win in 2005, when it appeared the opposition was likely to make gains, Meles tightened security across the country, and on the night of the election he declared astate of emergency, outlawing anypublic gathering as his ruling party claimed a majority win. Opposition members accused Meles of rigging the election, and demonstrations broke out. Security forces moved in, killing hundreds of people and jailing thousands. In 2010 Meles won another five years in office while receiving a reported 99 percent of the vote inan election that the U.S. and other international observers said did not meet international standards. Meles was the leader of a political coalition known as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary DemocraticFront. He was also the longtime chairman of the Tigray People's Liberation Front and has always identified strongly with his party. "I cannot separate my achievements from what can be considered as the achievements of the ruling party. Whatever achievement there might have been, it does not exist independent of that party," Meles once said when asked what he thought would be his legacy. Under Meles, Ethiopia saw strong gains in the education sector withthe construction of new schools and universities. Women gained more rights. And in the mid-2000s Ethiopia saw strong economic growth, which won Meles international praise. The International Monetary Fund in 2008 said Ethiopia's economy had grown faster than any non-oil exporting country in sub-Saharan Africa.