Profile of Ethiopia

Early History

Unlike most African countries, Ethiopia largely avoided being colonized by European powers during the late nineteenth century. It was one of only two independent African countries (the other being Liberia) that became members of the League of Nations when the organization was established on January 10, 1920. The Ethiopian state is ancient with formal governmental system rooted in biblical and national epics that survived since fourth century bce. Christianity as a national religion was promulgated around 325 ce. The Ethiopian state, blending Christian and Old Testament cultural values survived for centuries. The rise of the communist military government known as the Derg in 1974 abrogated all traces of its ancient political heritage. Until then, when the last dynastic monarch, Emperor Haile Selassie was murdered by the Derg in 1975, the Ethiopian state survived for centuries as one of the longest surviving institutions in the world in sub-Saharan Africa. There are many references to it in the religious texts such as the Bible, the Quran, and in the literature of ancient Rome and Greece. With rise of Islam in the sixth century, the Aksumite Empire lost its glory and might. It expanded inward in Ethiopia proper to include the southern mountains and vast fertile and forest plains beyond the Abay River. It incorporated Bantu-speaking ethnics and tribes in the southeast and southwest part of the country. The core of Ethiopian civilization, religion, and culture endured in the Abyssinian highlands, where Coptic Christianity developed into a rigid and dogmatic belief in the middle of persistent poverty and a state of entrenched underdevelopment.

The colonization of the Horn of Africa by the Europeans corresponded to a period of imperial expansion by the Ethiopian state. Emperor Menelik II (1889–1913) competed against the European powers in colonizing neighboring ancient kingdoms in southern Ethiopia. Most of the Oromo region in south-central and central Ethiopia, and the region currently designated as Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia (SNNPE) were incorporated by the colonial ventures of Menelik II. Italian efforts to extend their influence beyond Eritrea to the interior of Ethiopia were rebuffed by Menelik at the famous Battle of Adowa in 1896. Menelik fell short of fully defeating Italy, because he allowed them to hold on to Eritrea. Eritrea’s history was integral part of ancient Ethiopia until Italy colonial adventure and Menelik II’s concessions in the Wuchale Treaty as ratified in September 29, 1889, decoupled Eritrea from Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s expansion during this time resulted in its acquisition of territories that encompassed an ethnically and religiously diverse population.

Post Colonialism Ethiopia

The end of the colonial era in Africa after World War II created new opportunities for Ethiopian to return Eritrea as part of its historic territory. Ethiopia was invaded by Italy in 1935 and occupied until 1941. Emperor Haile Selassie fled his country on the hills of Italian invasion. Great Britain defeated and expelled the Italian forces from Ethiopia after their occupation in 1935. Eritrea, as a former Italian colony, was placed under the United Nations trusteeship. When Emperor Haile Selassie resumed power, he argued successfully that Eritrea should be incorporated into Ethiopia. Instead of direct reunion of Eritrea and Ethiopia, the United Nations approved Eritrea’s federation with Ethiopia in 1952. Ten years later Haile Selassie annulled the federal arrangement and arbitrarily annexed Eritrea. The annexation precipitated a thirty-year war of Eritrean secession and sovereign independence in 1993.

Revolution and War

Haile Selassie sought to transform Ethiopia into a modern, if autocratic, state. Decidedly anticommunist and pro-Western, he built a large army with Western aid. As Ethiopia’s economic situation deteriorated under pressures of periodic drought, high population growth, land degradation, and government corruption, Haile Selassie’s grip on power began to loosen. His government disregarded famines in the Wollo and Tigray provinces from 1972 to 1974, where more than 200,000 people died. His inaction provoked resentment, as did the growing economic problems and government corruption.

Haile Selassie was overthrown by the military on September 12, 1974, in a bloodless coup. The ancient monarchic system was abolished by the military, and replaced by a Stalinist version of communism. The communist military government called itself the Derg, an Amharic term meaning “the committee.” Aside from repeating communist slogans for forced mobilization and indoctrination campaigns, similar to that of the totalitarian and fascistic systems, as well as those that were popular in Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia, the military officers who wrested power from Emperor Haile Selassie and their civilian cadres were not equipped to govern. They were harsh, brutal, irrational, and quick to shed innocent blood at whim than to bring any measures of unity and nation- and state-building. To the violent Stalinist methods of the government was added ethnic resistance. Even the military leadership, while profession ideological comradeship, was badly divided along class and ethnic lines. The promised unity and stability that the military government promised degenerated further into power struggles which intensified and increased a vicious civil war. Marxist intellectuals calling for a civilian politburo and directorate councils demanded the army go to their barracks and surrender political and administrative power to civilians. The military responded with a campaign of terror in which thousands of people in Addis Ababa and other major cities were killed during Red Terror campaign of 1976. Out of the violent struggle, Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as the undisputed leader. He led a ruthless and oversaw an increasingly authoritarian communist regime.

As Mengistu fought to maintain power in Addis Ababa, resistance in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia deepened. Liberation groups surfaced all over the country. In the Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia, the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) won support from Somalia in its campaign for independence. Somalia’s president Siad Barre mistakenly calculated that Ethiopia would be unable to prevent Somalia from intervening and reclaiming the disputed Ogaden region.

In July 1977, as Ethiopia faced growing resistance in Eritrea, Somalia invaded. Desperate for military aid, Mengistu turned to the Soviet Union and Cuba to put down the ethnic-based wars of secession he faced in Eritrea and the Ogaden. His communist allies responded decisively. By early 1978, Somalia withdrew from the Ogaden, and Eritrean liberation forces suffered major, albeit temporary, setbacks.

The Ethiopian regime was intensely preoccupied with aping Soviet ideology, attempting to make communism a practical guide for governing, and employing the revolutionary dictated of Leninism as organizing and applying violence as means to an end. It failed badly, because its rank-and-file were illiterate pretenders, lawless, cruel, and anti-intellectuals filled with resentment. Such weak foundation for governance was bound to fail in effectiveness and efficiency on matters of nation- and state-building, and in the most critical undertaking of security and national defense. Huge amount of Ethiopia’s budget was spent on weapons and defense, and efforts to achieve economic prosperity failed dismally. Large and collectivized state farms wallowed in inefficiency, while the productive capacity of the general peasantry was ignored. With little capital and facing great public misery and ongoing regional opposition, Mengistu’s socialist revolutionary dream took on the characteristics of a national nightmare.

Famine and Civil War

In 1984, drought and famine struck northern parts of Ethiopia. Mengistu was content to ignore the problem until it spread throughout much of Ethiopia. His government appealed for international aid, and the Ethiopian famine captured the world’s attention. Benefit concerts were held, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations mobilized, and governments, often reluctantly, offered humanitarian aid. Relief gradually made its way to famine-stricken areas. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians died as famine relief was inhibited by regressive politics and dogmatic communist ideology.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia undertook a controversial program of resettling displaced Tigrayans into the malarial grasslands of the southwest. Many observers viewed the program as a cynical effort by the government to deprive opposition groups in the north of their population. In 1986, under international pressure, the program was abandoned. However, Ethiopia continued its forced “villagization” program, which was part of its strategy of controlling ethnic opposition in outlying provinces. This program sparked much popular resistance as well.

Ethiopia gradually lost support from many of its communist allies. Facing economic collapse, the Soviet Union reduced its support for the Derg. Mengistu, the Derg leader, pontificated and railed against the Soviet leaders for abandoning communism in reaction to the Glasnost and Perestroika projects of Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. With the collapse of communism in both the Soviet Union and East Europe, Mengistu, once seemingly invincible, became ever more vulnerable. His cosmetic efforts at governmental reform in 1987 did little to quell opposition to his regime. On March 17, 1988, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) routed Ethiopian forces in northern Eritrea in the Battle of Afabet. The eminent British historian of Africa, Basil Davidson, likened the Ethiopian defeat to the Battle of Dien Bein Phu in Vietnam.

In the following year, the TPLF gained control of all of Tigray province. Sensing its growing power, the TPLF decided to develop a nationwide opposition to Mengistu and formed the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). EPRDF forces menaced Addis Ababa itself. In February 1990, the EPLF captured the port of Massawa, thus completely cutting the Mengistu regime’s access to the sea. Mengistu’s government, too entrenched in its habit of self-destruction, resorted to further recriminations over the battle losses. Mengistu ordered the dismissal of several top generals, and the execution of top generals—among them, the accomplished commander of the Northern Front Army, General Tariku Ayne.

By the end of 1990, Mengistu Haile Mariam’s government was folding and gradually atrophying in its capacity to control or rule over areas closer to the capital, Addis Ababa. In May 27, 1991, Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country. Mengistu surrendered power and fled the country into exile in Zimbabwe. On May 28, 1991, a combined force of EPLF and EPRDF breached Addis Ababa defensive positions and entered the capital.

Transitional Government

Sensing its imminent victory and realizing its need for international support, the EPRDF reformed its political program. It downplayed its Marxist origins and declared its desire to pursue the development of a broad-based, decentralized, and democratic political system for Ethiopia. This system would emphasize regional autonomy and thus, at least theoretically, deal with the long-standing ethnic problem in Ethiopian politics. The United States brokered peace talks to ensure a peaceful transition to a new government.

The victories of the EPLF in Eritrea and the EPRDF in Ethiopia ushered in a transitional government and a hope for democratization of a country that had long suffered under autocratic and despotic rule. The EPLF made clear its desire for complete Eritrean independence, and the EPRDF bowed to this wish. Eritrea’s de facto independence was gained in May 1991, with the establishment of a provisional government. A referendum held on April 24, 1993, made Eritrea’s sovereignty and independence officially formalized its separation from Ethiopia. Symbolically, Ethiopia became landlocked, as its major sea outlets were the two Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab. Practically, as far as the two countries were eager to choose diplomatic goodwill and developmental priorities, access to the two ports was deemed as free for Ethiopia as they would for Eritrea.

As Eritrea achieved its independence, Ethiopia was freed of its long-standing preoccupation with keeping the rebellious Northern Province under control. Now it could focus on other pressing issues of concern. The EPRDF held a Peace and Democracy Conference in July 1991 to establish a two-year transitional government. The chairman of the EPRDF, Meles Zenawi, was named the head of state and head of the Council of Representatives.

The new transitional Ethiopian government dedicated itself to the principle of regional self-determination within the framework of a federal government at the national level. This strategy, it was hoped, would help solve the multiethnic problem that was a permanent source of crisis. The country was subsequently divided into nine regions (kilil), with the cities of Addis Ababa and Harar having an autonomous status. The different regions reflected language and ethnic divisions of the country’s population.

In 1994, further elections were held to establish a constituent assembly, which would in turn ratify a new national constitution. With the ratification of the constitution, elections were held in August 1995, and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) formally came into existence. Meles Zenawi, chairman of the EPRDF, was elected prime minister, and Negasso Gidado, member of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), was elected president. The establishment of the new government did not ensure the victory of democracy, however, or a complete end to ethnic dispute or armed regional resistance.

EPRDF arrived as a governing coalition in 1991. They defeated the second largest army in Africa, and by the standards of strategic and tactical military measures, the most active, well equipped, and continuously exercised military forces in Africa. The EPRDF’s feat in accomplishing the defeat of a “radical” ideological regime was due to the alliances they forged with the Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF). They agreed upon a battleground common front in 1984, and succeeded in overthrowing the Derg in 1991 when the EPRDF entered Addis Ababa and created a transitional government. The EPLF entered Asmara, the capital of Eritrea; established a transitional ruling system that degenerated to retrograde and arbitrary system human rights violations against the Eritrean people. After the two fronts achieved their victory over the Derg, EPRDF embarked on the mission of nation- and state-building. (To do so, it had to write a Transitional Charter, establish a constituent assembly, and write a constitution endorsed by the public and ratified by the constituent assembly.) The modern state of Ethiopia is decidedly multiethnic, and this has contributed to the conflicts that broke out during the 1970s and still erupt in the twenty-first century. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRDF) removed the Derg in 1991.

The current constitution written by the EPRDF established a Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) rooted in a federal system that recognized the ethnic diversity of the country. It was hoped that this experiment would serve an attempted to create a political space for all ethnics by recognizing their unique heritages within a united and democratic Ethiopian federal state. Since then EPRDF ruled the country under the steady hands of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi until his death in August 21, 2012.

In the highly diversified society and calcified socio-cultural landscape of Ethiopian politics, the EPRDF was beginning a journey that would require time, patience, and strong leadership to build the state and inculcate a common feeling of citizenship and patriotism among Ethiopia’s tumultuous society. EPRDF was the organization fit for the task. It was the type of organization Ethiopian agitators, revolutionaries, and activists called for during the Haile Selassie and the Derg rule. Meles Zenawi, the leader of the EPRDF, was the competent man of law and order who combined an ardent sense of nationalism with well-crafted national strategies covering domestic and foreign policies.

In domestic policy Meles, the Marxist-Leninist of the guerrilla-insurgency years, converted overnight to a liberal free-market humanist. He showed his humanist side by encouraging the creation and vitalization of civil societies organized to champion common developmental goals within a system of “developmental democracy.” While in Europe such a leadership strategy might be regarded as enlightened, in the context of Ethiopia Meles’s shining example was not credited by Western observers for its brilliance. Their inability to understand what motivated, inspired, and guided Meles was ill-advised. The accomplished scholar and top public policy analyst, Joseph Stiglitz, however, understood the range of Meles’s leadership and integrity, describing him as a committed visionary and effective leader.

Ethiopia’s regional policy showed Meles’s sense of diplomatic gravitas. He knew Ethiopia was a great country. To match its greatness, Meles realized that he had to project the same greatness and let other. African leaders know he was deserving the scepter of authority and the institutional legitimacy that a great country should find reflected in her great leader. Ethiopia played a leading role in peacemaking and peacekeeping in Sudan’s Darfur, South Sudan, and Somalia. Ethiopia exerted strong influence in the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Agency for Development (IGAD).

EPRDF as a coalition consisted of four liberation organizations. They are Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization (OPDO), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the TPLF represented 6 percent of Ethiopia’s ethnic composition. The Southern Ethiopian Nations and Nationalities (SEPNN) represented the numerous ethnic groups of southern Ethiopia. Ethiopia having more than 80 ethnolinguistic populations, the EPRDF was designed as the best mobilizing alternative to the pre- and post-1974 decades when the Amhara dominated and arbitrated exclusionist rule. The most effective organizational approach was deemed to create an egalitarian state with the most efficient means of redressing the sense of neglect and inequality that disparate citizens felt during the decades of exclusionary Amhara rule that prevailed before the arrival of the EPRDF in 1991. The vast southern Ethiopia regions consisted anywhere between 35 and 40 percent of the Ethiopian population. The SEPNN was as an umbrella organization to represent these multiple ethnotribes whose members also include settlers such as the Amhara, Oromo, Tigray and numerous indigenous communities. The key figure in harmonizing these organizations into a vision of a united, egalitarian, and equalitarian Ethiopia was Meles Zenawi, the leader of the TPLF.

Time Line: Ethiopia

Ongoing Problems

Regional self-determination remains the major obstacle in establishing a workable and widely accepted government in Ethiopia. The intractable ethnic problem has outlived the life the administrative tenure of Meles Zenawi who passed away in August 2012. Ethnic crisis was also the major cause for the 2018 resignation of his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmad succeeded Hailemariam on April 2, 2018. He began his tenure with euphoric optimism and democratic hope. Six months into his administration, the Oromo ethnic group, the largest population in Ethiopia, went in a frenzy of killing and expelling the Amhara ethnic groups in their provinces, districts, towns, and villages. The Amhara, the second largest ethnic group hunted and murdered the Tigrayan ethnic groups, one of the smallest ethnic groups in the country. The Sidama people of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People (SNNP) have called for a referendum for statehood to take place in January 2020.

The EPRDF, which was founded by and remained politically dominated by Tigrayan members of the TPTF, has had a difficult time shaking the label of a Tigrayan political organization because of its strategy about how to pursue national reconstruction. For instance, although one hundred political parties emerged in Ethiopia during the transitional government period, the EPRDF sought to co-opt the leadership of regional parties that would accept association with it. Opposition groups that continued to oppose EPRDF policies were generally repressed. Only opposition groups that agreed with the idea of regional autonomy within a federal system were considered appropriate by the EPRDF.

The EPRDF won considerable influence in areas where it was successful in co-opting regional support. However, in some regions, such as in the Somali and Afar regions, the EPRDF found it difficult or impossible to find support. In the Oromo region, the EPRDF’s effort to establish a collaborative Oromo organization actually prompted the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) to pull out of the 1992 elections. Determined opposition to EPRDF rule was mainly limited to the OLF and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a Somali group. The constitution eventually included a provision that guaranteed the right to secession, but the legal procedures to attain secession are complex, and groups that aspire to it are routinely repressed. The recent agitation by the Sidama people and Prime Minister Abiy’s willingness to persuade their leadership to postpone their referendum for statehood is an exception to the EPRDF hardline stand on regional autonomy or threat of secession.

At the other extreme are political organizations that are concerned that EPRDF policy will lead to the eventual dismemberment of Ethiopia, as one region after another seeks full independence. These groups, including the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces and the Ethiopian Democratic Party, oppose the EPRDF’s policy of recognizing Eritrean independence and have called for the continued unity of Ethiopia. Until 2018, they operated mainly from exile. Since the premiership of Abiy Ahmed, they all returned to Ethiopia, established offices in Addis Ababa, and have engaged themselves in negotiations on electoral rules and procedures to take place in 2020. Their unitary state approach has fueled intensified anger and call for regional autonomy in the SEPNN region among them the Sidama people whose value as source of capital goods enriched the dominant classes of Ethiopian elites, but politically and socially neglected until the EPRDF recognized their right for statehood at proper and advantageous times.

In the last 28 years, the EPRDF, faced the problem of ensuring national stability while pursuing democratization. These are not always mutually consistent objectives, and more often than not the EPRDF has given priority to national security and stability over human rights. As long as the government faces opposition groups that are willing to use violence, it will claim the sovereign right to deal harshly with threats to stability. An exception to this prospect is the recent democratization process began by Abiy Ahmad. His approach was hailed widely as a promising hope for Ethiopia. Many of those who were bitterly against the EPRDF under the leadership of Meles Zenawi and his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, have given the benefit of doubt to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Future Prospects

There is little doubt that Ethiopia emerged in the late 1990s as a much safer and better place to live than revolutionary Ethiopia had been. The EPRDF made major strides in restoring peace and a degree of prosperity to the people of Ethiopia. It did not attain in practice all of the ideals of a democratic state, but neither did it resemble the brutal and ideologically rigid regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

With the new visionary leadership of Abiy Ahmed, the prospects for peace and democracy are bright. Abiy Ahmed’s approach is much more pacifist than the sometimes acerbic and authoritarian tendencies of Meles. Abiy will have the administrative footprints of Meles to guide him and provide him contextual background in domestic affairs or to chart his new path.

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia stands a good chance of obtaining domestic stability. The government, despite its record of less than stellar record in human rights, has the support of the United States, as well as European Union and fellow African governments. It has undertaken a series of war crimes investigations and trials against members of the former Mengistu regime. It has restored cordial and cooperative relations with Eritrea. The two governments have signed a Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship in July 9, 2018. Ethiopia is now poised to participate in the renovation of the ports of Massawa and Assab. The two counties have scheduled further declarations on trade, travels and other trans-border protocols and joint administrative procedures.

Ethiopia has assisted in resolving conflicts in other parts of the Horn of Africa. Before his untimely death in 2012, Zenawi, for instance, has offered to help Somali clans establish a framework for peace in neighboring Somalia. He also helped resolve the South Sudan and Darfur crisis. His skillful leadership and the force of his intelligence and congenial personality endeared him among his fellow African leaders and the world at large. The European Union’s working group on Ethiopia has offered its help in promoting the development of democracy in Ethiopia.

Localized famine and drought continue to plague Ethiopia. While periodic droughts and famines will probably continue to plague Ethiopia, the new government has experience in providing relief. It has demonstrated a willingness to confront and cope with humanitarian problems rather than ignore or manipulate them as previous governments have done.

Similarly, sporadic and localized resistance to the regime could continue in the years to come. However, as the new government gains both confidence and skill in handling these challenges to its authority, these regional disputes will tend to move toward resolution rather than revolution. After decades of bad government and bad luck, Ethiopia seems to be a country slowly mending itself. Full and complete national health will emerge only if the government learns how to cope with the reality of Ethiopia’s multiethnic character in full compliance with human rights norms and without recourse to force.

For Further Study