Ethiopia

E

International Organizations

Ethiopia is a member of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union.

VI

History

Ethiopia can claim to be one of the cradles of humankind. Fossil hominid remains found in the Awash Valley date back some 3 million years, and later evidence suggests continuous human occupation. During the 1st millennium bc, Semitic people from Saaba (Sheba) crossed the Red Sea and conquered the Hamites on the coast of what was eventually to become the Ethiopian Empire. By the 2nd century ad the victors had established the kingdom of Āksum, ruled by the Solomonid dynasty, which claimed direct descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Āksum converted to Christianity in the 4th century, belonging to the same tradition as the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and its empire flourished for several hundred years. From the 7th century onwards, Āksum declined as the Solomonids gradually lost control of their realm. Early in the 10th century the dynasty was overthrown and replaced by the Zagwe dynasty, the ruling family of a region on the central plateau known as Lasta.

From around 1260 the Solomonids gradually succeeded in reasserting their authority over much of Ethiopia, although Muslims retained control of the coastal area and the south-east. During the reign (1434-1468) of Zara Yakub, the administration of the Ethiopian Church, which had become divided by factionalism, was reformed, and religious doctrines were codified. At about this time, a political system emerged that lasted until the middle of the 20th century. It was characterized by absolutist monarchs who exacted military service and tithes in return for grants of land.

A

European Influence

When Muslims from Harar invaded Ethiopia beginning about 1527, the emperor, as the ruler was now called, asked the Portuguese for assistance, and with their help the Ethiopians defeated the Muslims in 1542. In 1557, Jesuit missionaries arrived, but their ongoing attempts to convert the Ethiopian emperors from Coptic Christianity to Roman Catholicism were largely unsuccessful, and provoked social and political unrest from those who felt the Coptic Church was the backbone of an independent Ethiopian culture.

In 1632, following a period of turbulence and dynastic confusion, Fasiladas became emperor. He was succeeded by his son, Johannes I, in 1667. The 17th century was one of artistic renaissance for Ethiopian culture, as it was exposed to styles of expression from western Europe and the Muslim world. This was especially true during the reign of Johannes’ son, Iyasus I, also known as Iyasus the Great. After succeeding to the crown in 1682, Iyasus became known as a lover of the arts, as well as a modernizer and brilliant military tactician. His reign saw the construction of some of Ethiopia’s most beautiful religious buildings as well as the re-establishment of governmental authority over several provinces in the south that had succumbed to Muslim and tribal encroachment.

After Iyasus’ death in 1706, Ethiopia entered another prolonged period of dynastic confusion and decline, during which the country fractured into separate regions.

The only unifying force throughout this period was the Ethiopian Church. With the support of high Church officials, a successful brigand from the north-western frontier, Ras Kassa—who had defeated a number of petty feudal rulers in various parts of the country—had himself crowned Emperor Theodore II in 1855. Later, when Theodore imprisoned some British officials for conspiring against him, the British government dispatched an expeditionary force to Ethiopia; the emperor committed suicide in 1868 rather than be taken prisoner. After a four-year struggle for the throne by various claimants, Dejaz Kassai, governor of the province of Tigre, succeeded, with British aid, in being crowned Johannes IV.

In the 1870s the main external enemy of the empire, which was still little more than a collection of semi-independent states, was Egypt. In 1875 Khedive Ismail Pasha extended Egyptian protection to the Muslim ruler of Harar and launched an attack on Ethiopia from both the north and the east. Johannes IV successfully halted the Egyptian invasion, but the continued occupation by Egypt of the Red Sea and Somali ports severely curtailed the supply of arms and other goods to Ethiopia. Johannes was killed defending his western frontier against the Sudanese in 1889. He was succeeded by Menelik II, who established his capital at Addis Ababa and succeeded in uniting the provinces of Tigre and Amhara with his kingdom of Shoa.

B

The Italo-Ethiopian Wars

With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the Red Sea coast had become increasingly attractive to the European powers as an area for colonization. Italy focused its attention on Ethiopia, seizing Āseb in 1872 and Mitsiwa in 1885. In 1889 Menelik and the Italians signed the Treaty of Wichale (Ucciali). The treaty was supposedly one of friendship and cooperation, but the Amharic and Italian versions of it differed, and the Italians claimed that it made all of Ethiopia their protectorate. As a result, war broke out between the two countries in 1895, and Italian forces were decisively defeated at Ādwa (Aduwa) the following year. Italy was forced to recognize the independence of Ethiopia, and Menelik’s present-day boundaries. Menelik’s successor, Emperor Lij Iyasu (reigned 1913-1916), was deposed in favour of his aunt, crowned Empress Zauditu. Tafari Makonnen, her cousin, was selected as heir apparent; he succeeded to the throne as Haile Selassie I. In 1931 he granted Ethiopia its first constitution.

With the rise of the dictator Benito Mussolini, Italian designs on Ethiopia were revived, and in October 1935 Italy invaded the country. An attempt by the League of Nations to halt the conquest failed. Addis Ababa fell to the invaders, and in May 1936 Mussolini proclaimed King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy as Emperor of Ethiopia. Haile Selassie was forced to flee the country and take refuge in England, but he was restored to the throne by British and Ethiopian forces in 1941.

C

The Later Reign of Haile Selassie

According to the terms of the Allied peace treaty with Italy, signed in 1947, agreement was to be reached within a year on the disposition of the former Italian colonies of Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, and Libya. In the absence of such an agreement, however, the decision was left to the UN. The UN General Assembly voted for the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia, to be completed by September 1952. However, once the federation was complete, Haile Selassie moved to end Eritrea’s autonomy. By 1962 it had been reduced to a province of Ethiopia, provoking the establishment of a national resistance movement, the Eritrean Liberation Front, and the start of a military struggle which culminated 30 years later in the overthrow of the Ethiopian government and Eritrean independence.

In 1955 Haile Selassie issued a revised constitution, which was a half-hearted attempt to move the country into the 20th century. It gave certain limited powers to the parliament, but progressive elements in the country felt it was insufficient. After an unsuccessful attempt by members of the imperial guard to overthrow Haile Selassie in December 1960, the emperor increased government efforts towards economic development and social reform.

As the 1960s progressed, Haile Selassie became increasingly preoccupied with foreign affairs. In 1963 he played a leading role in the formation of the Organization of African Unity, which set up its secretariat in Addis Ababa. The following year, a long-standing border dispute between Ethiopia and the Somali Republic erupted into armed warfare. A truce, agreed to in March, established a demilitarized zone along the border, but hostilities recurred sporadically. Trouble also arose in 1965 with Sudan, which Ethiopia accused of aiding the Eritrean independence movement. The conflict intensified when 7,000 Eritreans fled to Sudan in 1967 because of Ethiopian military reprisals against the secessionists. In December 1970 the government declared a state of siege in parts of Eritrea, but this failed to end the guerrilla warfare.

In the early 1970s Haile Selassie continued to play a major role in international affairs, helping to mediate disputes between Senegal and Guinea, Tanzania and Uganda, and northern and southern Sudan. Nevertheless, he largely ignored urgent domestic problems: the great inequality in the distribution of wealth, rural underdevelopment, corruption in government, rampant inflation, unemployment, and severe drought and famine in the north during 1972-1975.