Ethiopia

D

The Mengistu Regime

In February 1974 students, workers, and soldiers began a series of strikes and demonstrations that culminated, on September 12, 1974, in the deposition of Haile Selassie in a military coup. A group called the Provisional Military Administrative Council, or the Dergue, was set up to run the country. In late 1974 it announced the establishment of a state-controlled socialist economy. In early 1975 all agricultural land was nationalized, and much of it was soon parcelled out in small plots to individuals. In March 1975 the monarchy was abolished, and Ethiopia became a republic.

During 1976-1977 Lieutenant-Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as the country’s chief political figure; his position was consolidated in early 1977, when several of his potential rivals were killed during a power struggle among Dergue leaders. Mengistu’s regime continued to be strongly opposed by students, by several political factions, and by two secessionist movements—in the Ogadēn region of south-western Ethiopia, and in Eritrea. In the Ogadēn, Somali-speaking inhabitants sought to unite the largely barren region with adjacent Somalia. The long-standing conflict escalated in mid-1977, and, with considerable help from Somalia, the secessionists soon won control of most of the Ogadēn. The two countries finally signed a peace accord in 1988, but did not renounce their claims to the region.

E

Ethiopia Becomes a Communist State

The Ethiopian government subsequently received large-scale military aid, including troops from Cuba and advisers from the USSR, which enabled it to make gains against the rebels, but resistance to its authority continued. In September 1984, Ethiopia became a Communist state, with Mengistu as secretary-general of the newly established Workers Party. The name of the country was changed to the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in 1987, under a new constitution that ostensibly established a civilian government; the national legislature elected Mengistu as president.

Meanwhile, a government programme to reduce poverty and boost economic growth was stalled by recurrent drought and famine. The government’s highly unpopular programme of resettling the population in villages (villagization) as a response to drought and insecurity made matters worse. The protracted civil war hampered worldwide efforts to provide food and medical aid to the beleaguered country throughout the 1980s, with both sides making political capital out of relief supplies.

F

Eritrean Independence

As the 1990s began, the collapse of the Soviet bloc and a drastic cutback in Soviet aid left Mengistu’s government vulnerable. Two allied rebel movements, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, the restructured and renamed Tigrean People’s Liberation Front, TPLF), and the separatist Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) gained control of the northern provinces in 1990. In May 1991, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe. After peace talks brokered by the United States, the EPRDF entered Addis Ababa unopposed and set up a national interim government. Under the transitional presidency of Meles Zenawi, the new government faced the huge task of rebuilding the country. Ethnic tensions surfaced, especially between the Tigreans and the Oromo, and disrupted the 1992 local elections.

After the EPLF established a provisional government in Eritrea, and the voters approved secession in 1993, Eritrea declared its independence, and Ethiopia recognized the new nation. Multi-party elections for a new national assembly for Ethiopia held in 1995 resulted in a victory for the EPRDF. Meles Zenawi became prime minister while Negasso Gidada took on the titular role of president.

Ethiopian relations with Sudan deteriorated in the mid-1990s with Ethiopia calling for UN measures to be taken against Sudanese involvement in terrorist incidents, for example, the attempt on the life of Egypt’s President Mubarak. In 1995 government forces attacked bases of a Somali Islamic fundamentalist group implicated in an attempted assassination of the Ethiopian transport minister.

G

War with Eritrea

An unresolved border controversy led to the outbreak of war with Eritrea, in June 1998. Fighting was concentrated around the disputed border territory, about 390 km (150 mi) in length. Using advanced military equipment, both sides engaged in trench warfare. The conflict escalated in February 1999. In June a peace agreement was brokered by the OAU; in September, however, Ethiopia refused to ratify the last part of the settlement, which dealt with practical implementation of the terms of the accord. Renewed fighting broke out in February 2000, made worse by the threat of famine throughout the country. In April 2000, an estimated ten million people were at risk of starvation because of prolonged drought and crop failure. In the May 2000 elections, the EPDRF won once again. Meles Zenawi was re-elected prime minister.

In May 2000 Ethiopian forces attacked opposing troops on several fronts and advanced deep into Eritrea, in some of the worst fighting seen since the start of the conflict. In June, the two countries announced an end to the war and in December a preliminary ceasefire agreement was signed in Algiers. The agreement provided for exchange of prisoners and a UN peacekeeping force (UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea: UNMEE) to be established in a buffer zone in Eritrean territory, after withdrawal by both sides from the area. In February 2001, Ethiopia announced it had completed its troop withdrawal, but the continued presence of Eritrean forces, as well as other disagreements between the two countries, led to delays in the implementation of the proposed Temporary Security Zone. A meeting between the countries’ leaders was set for April 2001. A final verdict on the positioning of the disputed border was to be given by a UN-commissioned team of cartographers in 2002 but the issue dragged on (the positioning of the town of Badme within Eritrea was the cause of most dispute) until late in 2004 when the Ethiopians agreed to accept the agreement in principle. UNMEE continued to monitor the buffer zone, concerned that neither country was adhering to the Algiers Treaty and noting heightened tensions on both sides of the zone.

In a surprise move in October 2001, parliament elected Lieutenant Wolde Giorgis as the new president in succession to Gidada. Giorgis, a 76-year-old independent member of parliament, was thought to have been chosen because of his Oromo background in a conciliatory gesture by the ethnic Tigrean-led government.

H

Involvement in Somalia

Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006 to help the interim government there against a rival, Islamic-led administration—the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC)—which had taken power. The leadership of the UIC declared a holy war against the invaders. Talks held in December in Djibouti to head off a major conflict failed and Ethiopian forces bombarded Mogadishu airport in the same month. Meanwhile the Somalian interim government, with the help of Ethiopian forces, re-took control of the capital from the Islamists. Ethiopian troops began their pull-out in January 2007.