Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. Bordered by Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, and South Sudan, Ethiopia is in a class by itself.
Size
Ethiopia is the tenth largest nation on the African continent, covering a land area of 1,104,300 square kilometers (426,400 sq mi). As of 2024, it is home to approximately 132 million inhabitants, making it the tenth most populous country in the world. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa behind Nigeria and the most populated landlocked country on the planet. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometers west of the East African Rift. The East African Rift splits the country across the African and Somali tectonic plates.
History
Ethiopian civilization dates back thousands of years. In fact, Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in Africa. Originally called Abyssinia or “Ze Etiyopia”, the nation was ruled by the Semitic Abyssinians (Habesha) composed mainly of the Amhara, Tigrayans, and the Cushitic Agaw.
“Lucy” and “Ardi”
Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia in the Middle Paleolithic period. The fossil of an Australopithecus afarensis hominin named “Lucy” was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. At 3.18 million years old, Lucy is one of the oldest and most complete early human ancestors ever found. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic language family. In 1994, an even older fossil was found in the same region. “Ardi” was dated at 4.4 million years old.
Ethiopia was historically known as Abyssinia, which comes from the Arabic form of the Ethio-semitic name Habesha.
The earliest mention of the term “Ethiopia” is found in the works of Homer, where it was used to refer to two groups of people, one in Africa and one in the eastern Turkey and India regions. In ancient times, Ethiopia was primarily used to refer to the modern-day nation of Sudan, also called Kush.
The word “Aithiopia” (Aethiopia) is Greek in origin and is a compound of the words aithō, meaning “I burn”, and ṓps, meaning “face”. It was used to describe darker-skinned African populations, particularly those in Nubia, now the region known as Sudan or Kush.
Read more about Ethiopia in my previous posts:
The History of Ethiopia – Part I
The History of Ethiopia – Part II
This story resumes with the reign of Emperor Selassie I
The reign of Emperor Haile Selassie (1930-1974)
Upon the death of Empress Zewditu in 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Negusa Nagast, literally “King of Kings” of the Ethiopian empire. He assumed the regnal name, Haile Selassie I, which roughly translates to “Power of the Trinity”.
Widely considered a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history, Selassie is accorded divine importance in Rastafari. The Rastafari movement is an Abrahamic religion that emerged in Jamaica during the 1930s. Rastafarians viewed Haile Selassie as the messiah who would lead the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom.
Ras Tafari Makonnen’s full title was “His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God.”
Selassie was born Lij Tafari Makonnen on July 23, 1892. In Amharic, his birth name, Lij, translates to “male child of noble blood”. His given name Tafari means “one who is respected or feared”. Like most Ethiopians, his personal name, “Tafari” is followed by that of his father, Makonnen. The name Haile Selassie was given to him as an infant at his baptism, and he adopted it again as his regnal name in 1930.
Early Years
Tafari was the only son of Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael. Tafari’s father, Makonnen, was an Ethiopian royal from Shewa, a military leader, and served as the governor of Harar. Educated by private European tutors, Tafari was no stranger to the royal court. When his father passed away in 1906, he was taken under the wing of his uncle, Emperor Menelik II.
At age 13, Tafari was appointed Dejazmatch of a region near Harar. Dejazmatch translates to “keeper of the door” in Amharic and is a title of nobility, the equivalent of a count. The capacity of his memory, his mastery of detail, and hard work earned Tafari the position of governor of Harar by age 17. This was a position previously held by his father.
Heir Apparent and Regent Plenipotentiary
In February 1917, he was proclaimed Crown Prince, heir apparent to the throne. His official name became Ras Tafari Makonnen. As mentioned earlier in this post, Ras is translated as “head”, a rank of nobility equivalent to a duke that is often translated as “prince”. During this time, he also served as Regent Plenipotentiary under Empress Zewditu, a role he occupied until her death in 1930.
In 1928, Ras Tafari Makonnen assumed the title “Negus” or King. Upon Zewditu’s death two years later, he became the 225th and last Emperor of Ethiopia under the regnal name, Haile Selassie I.
While Zewditu had been a more conservative leader, Haile Selassie was more progressive. Modernization became a priority for his regime.
Constitution
Selassie introduced Ethiopia’s first written constitution in July 1931. The constitution kept power in the hands of the nobility but established democratic standards, envisioning a transition to democratic rule. The charter established the Imperial Parliament of Ethiopia, a bicameral legislature that consisted of the lower House, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Upper House or Senate. Members of the legislature were appointed by the emperor himself.
Educational Reforms
Even before officially assuming the throne, the future emperor began reforming the education system in Ethiopia. Selassie believed that education was a tool for societal progress and individual empowerment. Historically, the education system of Ethiopia consisted of small, old-fashioned schools run by the church. In 1925, Selassie sent hundreds of young people to study abroad and established a second modern school in Addis.
Designed by Greek engineers and architects, Ethiopia’s first modern school was established in 1908 by Selassie’s uncle, Emperor Menelik II.
The Emperor promoted literacy and raised educational standards by recruiting educators from abroad. Teachers hailed from nations such as France, Lebanon, India, and the United States. The curriculum consisted of Amharic, French, English, Arabic, mathematics, chemistry, physics, history, geography, and physical education.
Abolition of Slavery
As Ethiopia gained more global recognition, the abolition of slavery became a high priority for the Emperor. Slavery was widespread in Ethiopia and deeply entrenched. Stretching back centuries, slaves served as soldiers, domestic servants, and laborers. Many were born into servitude while others were captured in raids and during wars. Some were even sold into slavery as payment for outstanding debts. Much of the trade was domestic, but Ethiopian slaves were also sold to Arabia and Turkey, where they were prized concubines and servants. Ending this “peculiar institution” was mandatory if Ethiopia wanted to occupy a particular space on the world stage.
League of Nations
The League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations (UN), was founded in Geneva in January 1920. The League was a product of the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to promote and maintain world peace.
Why did Ethiopia want to join?
Membership in the League would grant Ethiopia greater international standing and legitimacy on the world stage, potentially providing international protection against aggression from other nations. Ras Tafari made tentative inquiries regarding joining the League in his role as Regent Plenipotentiary. However, he delayed formally joining until 1923 due to international legal considerations. One issue was Ethiopia’s ongoing relationship with Germany, and the other was the trade in men.
Diplomatic ties with Germany
Ethiopia and Germany enjoyed close diplomatic ties and friendly relations starting in 1905. In 1907, Ethiopia established an embassy in Berlin, and Germany established an embassy in Addis Ababa. During World War I, a German diplomatic mission was declared internees by the Ethiopian government but were not detained. After Germany had lost the war, the German legation was allowed to continue its work in Ethiopia. This relationship proved problematic for the governing body, as Germany was initially excluded from eligibility as a member. This is what happens when the world holds you responsible for starting World War I.
Ongoing slave trade in Ethiopia
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, stipulated that a country must prohibit abuses, such as the slave trade, to be considered for inclusion. Selassie needed to show the world that Ethiopia was committed to terminating this “peculiar institution”. He had been exposed to political plots and power moves while serving as regent to Empress Zewditu and was well aware that European powers would use any excuse to invade Ethiopia. The slave trade was an easy target.
European interest in Ethiopia
The Brits’ opposition to slavery in Ethiopia was not humanitarian-driven. It was based purely on imperialist and strategic designs. Italy still longed for territorial gains and revenge for their humiliating defeat in the Battle of Adwa in 1896. Not one to be left out, the French had no aspirations to colonize Ethiopia outright but simply wanted to block Italy from totally dominating the region.
Admission to the League
In exchange for admission to the League, Selassie signed an accord to end slavery. He also issued a proclamation outlawing slave raiding, thereby making it a capital offense. Unfortunately, this practice was not stamped out entirely, and its existence came back to bite the emperor in the 1930s.
Ethiopia was the only independent African nation to join the League at the time.
Slavery Convention of 1930
The League played a significant role in the international fight against slavery by establishing the first major convention aimed at its eradication. The Slavery Convention of 1926 obligated member states to suppress the slave trade and abolish slavery within their territories. This marked the first time an international body actively addressed this inhumane practice globally.
Ethiopia signed and ratified the Convention in 1930, and Selassie began to gradually implement abolition policies to avoid disrupting the largely rural economy of the nation. Slavery was finally totally abolished under the Slavery (Abolition) Proclamation of 1942.
In the 1930s, Benito Mussolini justified his invasion of Ethiopia deeming it a mission to “civilize” the “backward” Ethiopian people.
Italian Invasion
Ethiopia became the target of renewed Italian imperialist designs in 1935. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was determined to restore the glory Italy enjoyed during the days of the Roman Empire. He actively sought ways to expand Italian influence by accumulating new colonies and foreign territories. Ethiopia quickly became his obsession as it would provide a bridge between his nation’s overseas possessions, Eritrea and Somaliland. Mussolini was also keen to avenge the military defeat Italy had suffered in the First Italo-Abyssinian War in 1896.
The Abyssinia Crisis
In 1934, Mussolini used a minor border skirmish to justify his invasion of Ethiopia. The dispute centered around the town of Walwal, which straddled Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. Emperor Selassie protested Italian aggression at Walwal while Mussolini demanded an apology for Ethiopian aggression, plus (in typical colonizer fashion) demanded financial and strategic compensation.
The invasion was one of the first acts of aggression leading to World War II.
January 3, 1935, Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations for arbitration. The “security” envisaged by the League proved useless, and a scandal erupted when it was discovered that Ethiopia’s League allies were scheming to appease Italy instead of acting as arbitrators.
In February 1935, Mussolini began to send large numbers of troops to Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. There was little to no international protest in response to the military build-up. Between March and September, Ethiopia requested the assistance of the League of Nations on multiple occasions. Emperor Selassie requested arbitration and pleaded for aid to resist the Italians but received no response.
The League failed to impose strong sanctions or properly arbitrate the conflict to deter Italy’s aggression. This failure to act effectively discredited the League’s standing as an international peacekeeping body.
Second Italo-Ethiopian War
On October 3, 1935, 200,000 Italian soldiers from Eritrea invaded Ethiopia with no formal declaration of war. Simultaneously, a smaller force invaded from Somalia. This prompted Ethiopia to declare war on Italy and officially started the Second Italo–Ethiopian War.
By October 6th, Adwa fell, followed by Axum on the 15th. The Italian victory at Adwa was symbolic as this was where the Italians were defeated in the First Italo-Ethiopian War in 1896. When the Italians seized Axum, they confiscated an obelisk and sent it to Rome just because.
An Ethiopian counteroffensive managed to stop the Italian advance for a few weeks, but the superiority of the Italians’ weaponry and airstrikes prevented them from taking advantage of their initial successes.
The Hoare–Laval Pact
In January 1935, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Laval, met with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This meeting aimed to avoid further conflict with the League of Nations, give Mussolini what he wanted, and prevent a wider European war.
In December 1935, Laval secretly met with British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and crafted the Franco-Italian Agreement or “Hoare-Laval Pact”. Under the agreement, Italy would receive parts of French Somaliland (currently Djibouti) and enjoy free rein in dealing with Ethiopia. In exchange, France sought Italian support against Germany as the Nazi Party expanded its influence.
The pact was somehow leaked to the public and caused widespread outrage. It was heavily criticized for betraying the principles of the League of Nations and effectively capitulating to aggression. Public outcry led to the resignations of both Hoare and Laval in December of 1935. Meanwhile, the Italian onslaught continued.
The Fall of Ethiopia
Following a series of defeats in the north, Emperor Selassie took the field with the last army unit on the northern front. On March 31, 1936, he launched a counterattack against the Italians at the Battle of Maychew in southern Tigray. Selassie’s army lacked the modern weaponry of the invaders and was woefully undertrained. The Ethiopian army was decimated and retreated in defeat.
Understanding that the capital, Addis Ababa, could not be defended, the Emperor relocated it to the southern city of Gore. Gore was situated in a more strategically defensible location than Addis. The belief was that this would allow him to continue governing away from the advancing Italian forces as he went into exile.
Emperor Selassie went into exile on May 2, 1936. Italian forces occupied the capital, Addis Ababa, on May 5th. The Italians then took control of Ethiopia in rapid-fire succession. The nation was annexed on May 7th, King Victor Emmanuel III was proclaimed emperor on May 9th, and Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) were officially united to form the Italian province of East Africa on June 1st.
Great Britain, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China all refused to acknowledge Italy’s conquest. While the League of Nations failed to intervene to prevent Italy’s aggression against Ethiopia, it also refused to formally recognize Italy’s annexation. A move that consequently rendered Italy’s possession illegitimate in international law.
After the occupation of Addis Ababa, nearly half of Ethiopia remained unoccupied, and the fighting continued for another three years until nearly 90% was “pacified” just before World War II.
The Emperor in Exile
On May 1st, an ad hoc council of Ethiopian nobles convened to discuss how to proceed. The council agreed that Selassie should go to Geneva to personally petition the League of Nations for assistance. Selassie and the royal family departed Ethiopia on May 2nd via Djibouti, bound for Jerusalem. The choice of Jerusalem was symbolic because the Solomonic Dynasty, of which Selassie was a member, claimed descent from the biblical House of David. While in Jerusalem, the Emperor spent most of his time with Abyssinian monks praying at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The Italians could have bombed Haile Selassie’s train as it left Djibouti but decided against it, likely due to potential international backlash and diplomatic complications.
After Jerusalem, Selassie went to England, then Geneva, Switzerland, where he addressed the League of Nations. In a fiery speech, he described the Italian government’s use of chemical weapons against the Ethiopian people and challenged the League to fulfill its promise of collective security. The League agreed to only partial sanctions on Italy, leaving Selassie without the help he had hoped for. Selassie spent the next five years in Bath, England, trying to garner support for the struggle against the Italian occupation of his homeland.
Death Toll
An estimated 760,000 Ethiopians lost their lives in the space of two years. The Negus claimed that more than 275,000 Ethiopian fighters and 78,500 guerillas were killed compared to only 1,537 Italians. The majority of the casualties were civilians, primarily due to atrocities such as bombings, massacres, and occupation-related starvation.
Both sides committed war crimes in this conflict, but Italian troops committed the most egregious offenses. Mustard gas was used in aerial bombardments on civilians, resulting in 17,800 deaths. This was reportedly done to discourage the Ethiopian people from resisting. It was also a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. Attacks against Red Cross ambulances and hospitals were also noted. Additionally, an estimated 35,000 people died in concentration camps in Italian Somaliland, near Mogadishu.
Crimes by Ethiopian troops included the use of Dum Dum bullets. The execution of civilian workmen and the mutilation, including castration, of Eritrean Ascari and Italian captives at the onset of the war.
Dum-dums, or expanding bullets, are projectiles designed to expand on impact with a target. This causes the bullet to increase in diameter, causing a larger wound on a human target. This type of bullet was banned in the first Hague Conventions of 1899, precisely for this reason. Curiously, though, they were only banned for use in warfare. They may still legally be used by police forces.
The Hague Conventions of 1899 were a series of international treaties that established rules for war and international disputes.
Selassie’s attempts to garner international support for his struggle against Italy were largely unsuccessful until Italy entered World War II on the German side.
Italy and World War II
With France destined to fall and World War II seemingly over, Italy joined the war on Germany’s side on June 10, 1940. Once again, Italy was chasing territorial gains, but it would not end well this time. The Italian forces enjoyed a few small victories at the onset of their involvement in the war. However, as time progressed, it was one disastrous campaign after another.
With the Italians overextended fighting campaigns, Britain saw an opportunity to destabilize Mussolini’s control in East Africa. Despite the inaction of the League of Nations, the Allied Forces recognized Selassie as the legitimate ruler of Ethiopia. On June 10, 1940, Britain declared war on Italy, paving the way to help Selassie organize an army. Britain provided military training and assistance to Ethiopian exiles in Sudan, enabling them to join the fight to regain their country.
British and Ethiopian forces liberated Addis Ababa from Italian occupation on April 6, 1941. A triumphant Emperor Selassie returned to Addis on May 5, 1941, exactly five years after the fascist forces had entered.
The last Italian troops in East Africa were defeated at the Battle of Gondar in November 1941. However, several thousand escaped and waged a guerrilla war until Italy’s surrender to the Allies in September 1943.
Post-World War II (1941-1974)
Ethiopia underwent a short period of British military administration, but full sovereignty was restored under the Anglo-Ethiopian agreement of December 1944. Additionally, Ogaden, a plateau in eastern Ethiopia, home to Somali-speaking people, remained under British control until 1955.
In the peace treaty of February 1947, Italy renounced sovereignty over its African colonies of Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia and formally recognized the independence of Ethiopia.
The Emperor’s return
Upon his return, Selassie focused on rebuilding the damaged infrastructure and government institutions left behind by the occupation. He introduced reforms to modernize Ethiopia’s education system, including promoting English language learning to facilitate communication with the international community. The country’s first important school of higher education, University College of Addis Ababa, was founded in 1950.
The Constitution of 1931 was replaced with the Constitution of 1955, which expanded the powers of the Parliament. Selassie also sought to improve Ethiopia’s international profile, leading to Ethiopia’s addition to the United Nations. Selassie was also a strong proponent of the Pan-African movement, establishing the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.
The Organization of African Unity was the precursor to the African Union.
Coup of 1960
There were several coup attempts to overthrow Selassie’s regime. Most notably, in 1960, several high-profile events degraded Selassie’s reputation. There were disputes over increased taxation, inflation, famines, autocratic land seizures, and the ongoing dispute over the annexation of Eritrea.
While Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil in December, the commander of the Imperial Guard and his brother attempted a coup d’etat. The Emperor quickly returned and forcefully suppressed the rebellion with the help of the Imperial Army. The coup leaders were subsequently executed, and order was restored. Selassie solidified his power as a leader by demonstrating his ability to crush dissent and installing the military as a key pillar of his regime. However, this reliance on the military ultimately contributed to his downfall in 1974.
The Emperor’s Downfall
Ethiopia remained a political leader and symbol of African independence abroad throughout the sixties. However, numerous serious problems were brewing at home by the early seventies.
Feudal System
Ethiopia’s feudal system of governance prevented the nation from keeping pace with economic and technological developments. Under the feudal system, society was strictly stratified, with the emperor at the top, followed by the aristocracy, the clergy, and then the peasant class. Power was largely concentrated in the hands of a ruling aristocracy that controlled land and extracted tribute from peasants.
Land distribution
The feudal lords held 30% of the land, the church 25%, the Emperor 20%, and the state 18%, leaving a mere 7% to the 23 million peasants. Adding insult to injury, the landless peasants lost as much as 75% of their produce to the landlords.
Under a system known as “gult”, the nobility was allowed to extract labor and taxes from the peasantry in exchange for protection.
Selassie introduced reforms to modernize the government, including a constitution and parliament, but never abolished the feudal structure. He continued to rely heavily upon the support of the nobles. This political short-sightedness caused stagnation.
“Shum-shir” system
In addition, Selassie implemented the “shum-shir” system, which treated political and administrative positions as inheritable, similar to the traditional “gult” system. These two systems promoted the growth of cronyism, exacerbated social inequality, and fostered resentment in the Ethiopian political system.
Inflation and corruption
The closure of the Suez Canal (1967-1975) after the Arab- Israeli war and OPEC’s dramatic rise in oil prices in 1973 contributed to a significant spike in the price of goods. This inflation led to extensive corruption.
Student Movements
The birth of the student movement can be traced back to 1960 when students at the University of Addis Ababa supported the coup against the Emperor. Their demonstrations were the first public defiance against the imperial regime. The coup was brewed in discontent among the educated military and civilian crowds who witnessed other African nations progressing more quickly politically and socially than Ethiopia. The unemployment rate and poverty levels among the youth were staggering. Many students embraced Marxist ideals as they demanded land reform and an end to feudalism.
Conflict with Eritrea
The Eritrean War of Independence was an armed conflict and insurgency aimed at achieving independence from Ethiopian rule. Eritrea was an Italian colony from the 1880s until 1941, when the Allied Forces defeated the Italians in World War II.
Muslims had been the first to suffer from Ethiopia’s intervention in Eritrea and they formed the first opposition movement.
Eritrea became a British protectorate from 1941 until 1952, when the United Nations voted to make it a constituent state of Ethiopia. The “Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea” was supposed to last ten years, during which time the nation would have limited autonomy. However, this autonomy was curtailed, and Eritrea was governed as a police state by imperial authorities throughout the 1950s.
In 1961, as dissatisfaction under Ethiopian rule grew, an insurgent movement known as the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) emerged. These insurgents engaged in guerrilla warfare, aiming to liberate their nation. The ELF grew in membership when Selassie abolished Eritrea’s autonomous status in 1962 and annexed it as a province in direct violation of the terms of the UN resolution.
Wollo Famine 1972-1973
In the midst of all this, a prolonged drought exacerbated by poor land distribution systems caused a famine in the Wollo and Tigray provinces. While the Selassie regime turned a blind eye, an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Ethiopians lost their lives. Attempts by corrupt local officials to cover up the famine failed. It attracted international attention, highlighting the government’s inadequate response and contributing to the growing discontent in the nation.
Russia’s Kremlin depicted Selassie’s Ethiopia as backwards and inept compared to the purported utopia its people enjoyed under Marxism–Leninism ideologies. The officers who staged the next and final coup against Selassie also embraced these same Marxist-Leninist ideals.
Military unrest
By the early 1970s, the imperial army was overwhelmed battling multiple regional revolts under deteriorating working conditions. Rampant inflation, coupled with their low wages, set the perfect stage for a mutiny.
In February 1974, four days of serious riots in Addis Ababa against a sudden spike in inflation left five dead. The Emperor responded by announcing a reduction in petrol prices, a freeze on the cost of basic commodities, and a 33% military wage hike. The petrol and commodities freeze temporarily calmed the situation for civilians. However, the soldiers deemed the wage hike insufficient. In June, a committee of enlisted men was set up to determine military demands and “negotiate”.
The Derg was a Soviet-backed military junta that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. The Derg was also known as the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC).
The committee, officially called the “Derg”, consisted of low-ranking military officers and enlistees. These men, who were entrusted to maintain law and order, took advantage of the chaos following the riots and deposed the Emperor on September 12th. Selassie was placed under house arrest in Addis while his family was detained in Harar in the north. The last months of the Emperor’s life were spent imprisoned at the Grand Palace.
Following the coup, much of the Ethiopian royal family fled the country, were imprisoned, or were executed. Later, most of the imperial family was detained in Kerchele Prison (“Alem Bekagn”) in Addis Ababa. On November 23rd, 60 former high officials of the imperial government were executed by firing squad without trial.
These killings would become known to Ethiopians as “Black Saturday”. Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen Taffari condemned the executions. The official response from the Derg was the dissolution of the monarchy in March 1975, effectively ending the Solomonic dynasty.
Assassination
On August 27, 1975, Selassie was murdered by military officers of the Derg regime. This fact would remain secret for 20 years as the state media reported the Emperor had succumbed to respiratory failure post complications from a prostate operation. In 1994, an Ethiopian court found several former military officers guilty of strangling the Emperor while he slept.
Haile Mariam Mengistu
Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam assumed power as Head of State and Chairman of the Derg in 1977. He had his two predecessors murdered, along with thousands of other suspected opponents, in a campaign known as the Red Terror.
The Red Terror, also known as the Qey Shibir, was a violent political repression campaign of the Derg against competing Marxist-Leninist groups in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea from 1976 to 1978.
From 1977 through early 1978, hundreds of thousands of suspected enemies of the Derg were deported, imprisoned, tortured, and/or executed without trial.
Communism was officially adopted in September 1984. In February 1987, a new Soviet-style civilian constitution was submitted to a popular referendum and endorsed by 81% of voters. Under the new constitution, the nation was renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia on September 10, 1987, with Mengistu as president.
A totalitarian-style government marked Mengistu’s years in office. The country’s massive militarization, unsurprisingly, was financed by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and assisted by Cuba. By 1990, the Soviets had grown weary of Mengistu and withdrew their support. One year later, “the chickens came home to roost” as Mengistu’s government was overthrown by its own officials and a rebel coalition known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). In the wake of the coup, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he is still believed to reside.
Genocide
Under Mengistu’s rule, atrocious crimes against humanity were committed. Estimates of the number of deaths for which he was responsible range from 500,000 to over 2,000,000. Experts believe that hundreds of thousands of the dead were university students, intellectuals, and politicians (including Emperor Haile Selassie). It was commonplace to see dissenters or suspected critics hanging from lampposts each morning during his reign. Mengistu is alleged to have personally murdered opponents by strangling or shooting them.
Additionally, Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978. Human Rights Watch describes the Red Terror as “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.”
Red Terror Trials
The new government, led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), established the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) in 1992 to “investigate and prosecute” former officials of the Derg. The investigation came to be known as the Red Terror Trial and is alternatively referred to as the African Nuremberg. According to Human Rights Watch, the first indictments were filed in 1994 with 5,198 individuals charged with the deaths of 8,752 people, causing the disappearance of 2,611 others, and torturing 1,837. Of all the individuals indicted, 2,246 were already being detained, and 2,952 were charged in absentia.
The defendants were classified into three categories: policy and decision-makers, officials who passed on orders or acted autonomously, and those directly responsible for committing the alleged crimes. There were 55 top officials in the first category, including Mengistu, ministers, and military commanders. The charges brought against this group included genocide and crimes against humanity, torture, murder, unlawful detention, rape, forced disappearances and abuse of power.
The evidence against Mengistu included signed execution orders, torture session videos, and personal testimony. The trial began in 1994, and after 12 years of testimony, Mengistu was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. In addition to the genocide conviction, the court found him guilty of homicide, illegal imprisonment, and illegal confiscation of property. Following an appeal in 2008, Mengistu was sentenced to death in absentia by the Ethiopian High Court. This decision overturned his previous life sentence. Despite the guilty verdicts, Zimbabwe refused to extradite instead offering Mengistu asylum.
I will end my summarized history of Ethiopia here, noting that there have been six official presidents since the formal establishment of the office in 1987. In 2018, the nation elected its first female president and Head of State.
Up Next: Erte Ale, Lake Asale, and the Danakil Depression
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