Unity University

History (HIST 1012)

Chapter 7
 UNIT SEVEN
INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS AND EXTERNAL
RELATIONS, 1941–1995
• Reviewing key institutions and processes that
underlay Ethiopian political center and the
provinces and the country’s relations with the
outside world
• Consolidation of imperial power, opposition
movements, the 1974 Revolution, and the
replacement of the monarchy by a Marxist
leaning military government called Derg
• Formation of the Transitional Government of
Ethiopia (TGE) in 1991
• Promulgation of a new constitution in 1995
that established a federal form of government
led by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF)
 7.1.1. Restoration and Consolidation of Imperial
Power and External Relations

A. Ethiopia and Britain

Britain recognized Ethiopia’s status as a
sovereign state with mutual diplomatic
accreditation.
The 1942 and 1944 agreements that Emperor
Haile-Selassie I was forced to sign agreement that
gave Britain a final authority over Ethiopia’s
foreign affairs, territorial integrity, administration,
finances, the military and the police.
 Britain was approved employment of other
nationals by Ethiopian government
 Then British citizen were serve as advisors and
judges and maintained total control over the
country’s police force
 British aircraft had exclusive aviation rights and
 the emperor had to obtain approval from the
Commander in Chief of the British Forces in
East Africa, Sir Philip Mitchell, to implement
sovereign matters such as declaration of war or
state of emergency
 Britain also decided details on disposal of Italian
prisoners of war and civilians and
 the administration of Italian properties in the
country.
 In terms of finance, the British assumed control
over currency and foreign exchange as well as
import-exports.
 With this and the help of the USA and friends of
Ethiopia such as Sylvia Pankhurst,
 Britain relaxed the restrictions imposed upon the
Ethiopian government
The second Anglo-Ethiopian agreement, signed
in 1944
priority accorded to the British minster over
all other foreign diplomats in Ethiopia was
lifted
Ethiopian government regained control over a
section of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway
The British evacuate their army from the
region once they equip Ethiopia’s military
force(BMME)also agreed to
 Haile-Selassie I Harar Military
 Academy was modeled after a British Military
Academy called Sandhurst.
union of Eritrea with Ethiopia
 Claiming both Eritrea and Ogaden before they fell
into Italian hands in 1890 and 1936 respectively.
 But Ethiopia’s claims to the two territories were
met with little sympathy from the British.
 Britain insisted that Ogaden should be merged with
the former Italian Somaliland and
 British Somaliland to form what they called
“Greater Somalia”.
 The western and northern lowlands of Eritrea were
intended by the British to be part of Sudan
 They wanted to integrate the Tigrigna speaking
highlands of Eritrea with Tigray to form a separate
state.
 The UN appointed a commission of five men from
Burma, Guatemala, Norway, Pakistan and South
Africa to find out actual wishes of Eritreans
 After a period of investigation, Guatemala and
Pakistan recommended granting independence to
Eritrea.
 While Norway recommended union with Ethiopia,
 South Africa and Burma recommended Federation
 B. Ethiopia and the U.S.A
• In Ethiopia and the Horn, British pre-dominance
in 1940s was replaced by the dominance of the
United States in 1950s, due to the lack of
interest because of the Tripartite domination of
the Ethiopian diplomatic scene.
• Haile-Selassie I turned towards the United States
as a powerful ally than Britain, to modernize his
country and consolidate his power
• American interest in the region began to grow
especially after the Ethiopian force fought on the
side of the Americans in the Korean War (1950-3).
• Four Agreement enabled subsequent American
assistance were:
• Education and public health Assistance signed
in 1952, USAID, AFGRAD
• Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG)
was signed in 1953
• Civil aviation, road transport, and
Transcontinental and Western World
Airline (TWA) that established Ethiopian Air
Lines (EAL) in 1946
• Other foreign countries with significant presence in
Imperial Ethiopia include Sweden and Norway
whose advisors were entrusted to the Air,
• Germany and Israel Swedes, Italians and
Russians established relation
 7.1.2. Socio-Economic Developments
• Peasants in the northern and central highland
parts of Ethiopia held land in the form of rist
• In southern Ethiopia, government grants were
made by the Government for large number of
its supporters and tenancy was widespread.
•
• It was only minority religious and
occupational castes who suffered from tenancy
in the north while the tenant population as
percentage of total rural population in newly
incorporated regions varied from 37 percent in
former Sidama Governorate
• General to a staggering 73 percent in Ilu Abba
Bor, and 75 percent in Hararghe, whereas
tenancy in northern provinces averaged 11
percent. Tenants surrendered up to 60 percent
of their produce to landlords who mostly lived
in towns or the capital.
• Furthermore, the government attempted to
enhance the productivity of small farmers
through launching comprehensive
agricultural package programs.
• The most notable in this regard were
• The Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit
(CADU) launched in 1967 through the
initiative of the Swedish International
Development Authority (SIDA)
• Wolayta Agricultural Development Unit
(WADU) launched by World Bank.
• The major objective of the package programs
was demonstrating the effectiveness and
efficiency of agricultural packages to pave the
way for subsequent nationwide emulation of
the intensive package approach
• The emergence of new towns and the
development of city life hastened
urbanization.
• public revenue and expenditure both grew
nine times and tenfold, respectively.
• Strategic plans for economic development and
a series of five-year plans established in
1950.
• The First Five Year Plan (1957-1961) targeted
the development of infrastructure.
• The Second (1962-1967) mining,
manufacturing and electricity.
• The Third (1968-1972) gave priority to large
scale agricultural development and ‘bringing
higher living standard
• Banking facilities expanded and the State
Bank of Ethiopia was formed in 1942.
• The capital Addis Ababa became a continental
capital when the UN Economic Commission
for Africa (ECA) and the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) were established in 1958
and 1963 respectively.
• Overall, there was relatively high level of
modernization that was reflected in many
facets of life: music, sports, cuisine and dress
styles.
 7.1.2 Consolidation of Autocracy
• The post-liberation period witnessed the climax
of the emperor’s power
• Bureaucratization of government, the building
of a national army and a centralized fiscal
system
• In order to fill-in the expanding bureaucracy,
education was promoted at both school and
college levels, Haile-Selassie I Secondary
School (1943), and the General Wingate School
(1946), became the two most popular and
• The post-1941 political order was
dominated by Haile-Selassie that both the
state and the country came to be identified
with the emperor
• Strengthening of the military and security
apparatus.
• The ministries of Defense and Interior, in
• Traditional shum shir, the emperor
appointed and demoted his ministers, most
of whom had humble origins.
• In 1955, Haile-Selassie promulgated a new
constitution(1955), revising the issued in
1931 which strengthen imperial succession
and the emperor’s privileges
• In this constitution, The emperor was the head
of the three branches of government: the
executive, the legislative and the judiciary
• Human rights and civic liberties were
restricted and violated,
• Regional identities, needs and feelings were
ignored in the interest of centralization
• The emperor started to dedicate his attention to
foreign affairs.
• He played a significant role in the Non-
Aligned Movement and the drive for AU
• This increased his international stature and
set birth of the OAU at the summit of heads of
African states held in Addis Ababa in 1963.
• But his preoccupation with international
affairs detached the emperor from the
domestic affairs that he became careless of
the signs of trouble at home
 7.1.3. Oppositions and the Downfall of
the Monarchical Regime
A. Plots and Conspiracies; Coup d’état, leaders of
the resistance movement against fascist rule were
opposed to the restoration of the emperor to the
throne by Dejazmach Belay Zeleke, Dejach Geresu
Duki, Blatta Takele Wolde-Hawaryat, and coup
attempt leaded by Brigadier General Mengistu and
Girmame
B. Peasant Rebellions
• Woyane Rebellion:Inequities of the system and
corruption
• Yejju Rebellion : Appeal against land distancing
was ignored and introduction of mechanized
agriculture
• Gojjam Peasant Rebellion :Government’s attempt
to implement new tax on agricultural produce and
expansion of central authority
• Gumuz Rebellion : Administrative injustice, land
and taxation policies of the imperial regime
• Gedeo Peasant Rebellion: The dispossession of
land from the indigenous peasant and land
measurement in the 1920s.
• Bale Peasant Rebellion: The indigenous peasants
became tenants on their land after the introduction
of the qalad and land measurement in 1951and
• Peasants also suffered from high taxation, religious
and ethnic antagonism that reached to
unprecedented level
C. Movements of Nations and Nationalities
• Mecha-Tulama Welfare Association (MTWA) with
Colonels Alemu Qitessa and Colonel Qedida
Guremessa, Lieutenant Mamo Mezemir, Beqele
Nedhi, and Haile-Mariam Gemeda and Taddesse
Birru in Gindeberet, Dandi,Arsi (Dera and Iteya)
• In 1971 an underground movement called the
Ethiopian National Liberation Front (ENLF) was
formed by Oromo elites, perhaps by former
members of the association. (Haile Fida)
• The Front maintained contact with student circles
and other opposition figures in and outside Addis
Ababa.
 The aim was to coordinate local resistance
towards a common goal of liberation, although
thwarted by the regime’s security forces.
The regime’s unwillingness to accommodate the
legitimate and peaceful demands of various
Oromo groups for equality within Ethiopia
transformed Oromo nationalism into militancy
for self-determination.
In 1973, some members of the ENLF and other
Oromo nationalists formed the Oromo Liberation
Front (OLF)
In 1958, a number of Eritrean exiles had founded
the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) in Cairo
 D. The Ethiopian Student Movement (ESM)
• Factors that contributed to sharpening the
students’ ideology includes, the 1960 coup,
increased awareness of the country’s socio-
economic and political conditions from scholarship
students of d/t Africa, and the Ethiopian University
Service (EUS).
• In 1964 the emergence of a radical group of
students with Marxist-Leninist leanings known as
“the Crocodiles” marked the increased militancy of
the students.
• Outside the country, students were organized under
the Ethiopian Students Union in North America
(ESUNA) with its paper called Challenge and the
Ethiopian Students Union in Europe (ESUE) with its
paper Tateq (Gird yourself) in the USA and Europe
• Throughout the 1960s a rallying cry of student
demonstrations was “land to the tiller, educational
reform in 1966 and respect of the rights of nations
and nationalities,
• By early 1970s, the student movement coupled
with other under-running issues such as rising
inflation, growing discontent of urban residents,
corruption and widespread and yet covered-up
• Famine especially in Wollo all prepared a fertile
ground for a revolution
 7.2. The Derg Regime (1974-1991
• The mass uprising that finally put an end to the old
regime came in February 1974.
• From January 8 to 15 1974, soldiers and non-
commissioned officers stationed at a frontier post
Negele-Borana mutinied protesting their bad living
conditions.
• Soldiers of the Second Division in Asmara, the
Fourth Division in Addis Ababa and the Air
• Force in Debre-Zeyt (Bishoftu) mutinied
demanding salary increment and political
and economic reforms.
• The various units then set up a coordinating
committee which became a precursor of the
later Derg, in order to coordinate their actions
• Teachers throughout the country protested
against the implementation of an education
reform program known as Sector Review,
• On the same day, taxi drivers went on strike
demanding increase in transport fees (50%) due to
rise of petrol prices due Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur
war of 1973
• April 20 about 100,000 Muslim residents of the
capital and their Christian sympathizers who came
out demanding religious equality.
• The Derg was officially formed on June 28 1974
when it held its first meeting at the headquarters of
the Fourth Division under the motto of “Ethiopia
First, without any bloodshed
• “Derg” a Ge’ez word for “Committee” was
the shorter name given to the Coordinating
Committee of representatives from various
military units:
• Finally, on September 12,Emperor Haile-
Selassie I was deposed and detained at the
Fourth Division headquarters.
• The Derg then proclaimed itself the
Provisional Military Administrative
Council (PMAC) and assumed full powers.
• All strikes and demonstrations were immediately
banned.
• Civilian revolutionaries, who had started calling
for the establishment of a provisional people’s
government, started gathering around the
Confederation of Ethiopian Labor Unions
(CELU),
• the University teachers’ group known as Forum,
and the students.
• Sections of the military, the Army Engineers Corps,
the First Division (the former Bodyguard), and the
Army Aviation, also opposed what was to become a
military government
• Derg was Imprisoned the leaders of CELU and a
leader of the Forum group
• On October7, the militant Engineers were
violently crushed in a tank assault which took the
lives of five soldiers and there was massive arrest
afterwards.
 7.2.2. Attempts at Socio-Economic Reform
• Edget Behibiret Zemecha
• Derg changed its slogan of “Ethiopia First” to
“Ethiopian Socialism
• Radical land reform proclamation which abolished
all private land
• In 1975 banks and insurance companies were
nationalized
• On 26July1975 another proclamation nationalized
all urban lands and extra houses.
• Green Campaign” of 1978 aimed at bringing about
rapid economic development,
• The literacy campaign aimed at irradiating
illiteracy, and the
• “Red Star Campaign” of 1982 that aimed at
solving the Eritrean problem
• The cooperatives only led to monopolistic
government enterprises such as Ersha Sebil Gebeya
Dirijit (Agricultural Marketing Corporation),
• resettlements and villagization.
• The Derg used peasant associations to control the
countryside and the urban dwellers’ associations
(kebele) to control the towns
• Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP)
(formed in Berlin in 1972) reached its bloodiest
phase in 1976/7.
• Campaign of terror against the EPRP called the
“Red Terror”, as opposed to the “White Terror”of
the EPRP.
• Opposition to the Derg came from two rival
Marxist-Leninist political organizations called the
EPRP and the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement
(Meison).
• Derg pushed by the dominant leftist political culture
systematically by abandoned “Ethiopian socialism”
and embraced Marxism-Leninism,
• Derg proclaimed the National Democratic
Revolution Program which was the Chinese model
for socialist revolution and had identified
feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic
capitalism as the three main enemies of the people.
• In 1977 an alliance called Emaledeh, was
established as prelude to the formation of one
vanguard party
• In late 1976, the Derg itself was ideologically
divided and with the internal struggles
• The “Red Terror” initially targeting the EPRP and
later including other opposition organizations,
including EPLF , TPLF and Meison after its break
up from the Derg
• The Derg faced another challenge that was Siyad
Barre waged a large-scale war against Ethiopia
• The government mobilized a force of about 100,000
peasant militia and other forces that were trained
at Angetu, Didessa, Hurso,Tateq and Tolay in a short
time with the help of USSR advisors and
equipment.
• Finally, with 17,000 Cuban troop and the help from
Southern Yemen Democratic Republic the Somali
National Army was defeated at Kara-Mara near
Jigjiga on March 4, 1978
• Another challenge was A pro-monarchy
organization, the Ethiopian Democratic Union
(EDU), was marching inroads from the Sudan in the
Satit-Humera region.
• In December 1979, the Commission for
Organizing the Party of the Working People of
Ethiopia (COPWE) was established, and Mengistu
became the new party’s secretary-general
• In order for the government to have a more direct
societal control, there was the need for
restructuring of mass organizations which took
place after the formation of the party such as :
• ) All Ethiopia Trade Union (AETU)
• All Ethiopia Peasants’ Association (AEPA)
• Revolutionary Ethiopian Women’s Association
(REWA
• Multi-national movements like the EPRP and
Meison intensified in the center and include OLF,
in the Wallagga region, ILO, based in Hararghe,
ALF in afar, BLF Benishangul and GLF in
Gambela.
• The two significant liberation fronts which could be
considered to have jointly brought about the
downfall of the Derg were the EPLF and the
TPLF.
• Famine of 1972-4 to1984-5 contribute to failure of
the Derg’s economic policies of agricultural
production and marketing.
• International politics too did not carry on serving
Mengistu’s interest as his ally, the Soviet Union
ceased to be the source of his external support
• Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika
(restructuring) and glasnost, (openness) in 1985
aimed at making Soviet communism more efficient
and humane was a failure and the Soviet Union
collapsed as a major world power.
• Although Mengistu tried to improve relations with
the Americans, they were more directed towards to
his opponents, the EPLF and the TPLF.
• In March 1990, the Derg proclaimed a mixed
economy policy which seemed to come just late.
• TPLF, which after liberating Tigray, continued
organizational adjustments forming a bigger front
known as the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF).
 7.3. Transitional Government
• EPRDF and the OLF organized along ethnic lines
assembled to review the draft Charter, called the
Peace and Democracy Transitional Conference of
Ethiopia.
• The USA was at the forefront in providing the
necessary diplomatic backing for the Peace and
Democracy Conference.
• The Conference was attended by delegates from the
UN, the OAU, the G7, the US, the USSR, Sudan,
Kenya, Djibouti and Eritrea.
• Eritrea was represented by its future president,
Isayas Afeworki
• The Conference debated and approved the
Transitional Charter on the basis of which the
Transitional Government of Ethiopia was created.
• Representatives of 27 organizations formed a
Council of Representatives (COR) which acted as a
legislative body (‘Parliament’).
• This transitional parliament had 87 seats of which
32 were taken by the EPRDF and the remaining 55
seats were divided among the 23 non-EPRDF
organizations.
• At the same time, a Council of Ministers was
formed as an executive branch, with Meles Zenawi
as the President of the Transitional Government of
Ethiopia (TGE).
• Meles Zenawi then appointed a Prime Minister
(Tamirat Layne) and a seventeen-member Council
of Ministers.
• Key posts were given to members of the EPRDF
and OLF.