On May 21, 1991, Mengistu fled into exile in Zimbabwe, where he was granted political asylum, leaving his crumbling regime to his Vice-President, Tesfaye Kidan, who offered the rebels more concessions, including forming a power-sharing government. But by May 26, the last remaining government units defending the approaches to Addis Ababa had collapsed, and the city was poised to be seized by the rebels. Meanwhile in London, under the auspices of the United States which was assisting in Ethiopia’s transition to democracy, negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the EPLF and EPRDF to try and work out a post-war transitional government broke down when the government representative walked out of the proceedings in protest of the U.S. mediator’s proposal that EPRDF forces enter the capital to prevent widespread anarchy and lawlessness that were threatening to erupt as a result of the government’s impending collapse. On May 27, 1991, EPRDF forces entered the capital; except for some minor fighting that continued until June 1991, the war essentially was over. During the 17-year war, an estimated 400,000 to 580,000 people were killed in the fighting and war-related violence while another one million people perished during the 1980s famines.
(Taken from Ethiopian Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)
Background By early 1974 but unbeknownst at that time, the 44-year reign of Ethiopia’s aging emperor, Haile Selassie, was verging on collapse under the burgeoning weight of various internal hostile elements. Haile Selassie had ascended to the throne in April 1930, bearing the official title, “His Imperial Majesty the King of Kings of Ethiopia, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God”, to reign over the Ethiopian Empire that had been in existence for 800 years. Except for a brief period of occupation by the Italian Army from 1936 to 1941, Ethiopia had escaped falling under the control of European powers that had carved up the African continent into colonial territories during the 19th century. (The latter event, known as the Scramble for Africa, saw only two African states, Ethiopia and Liberia, that did not come under European domination.)
Under Haile Selassie’s rule, Ethiopia became a founding member state of the United Nations in 1945 and the Organization of African Unity in 1963. The Ethiopian emperor had placed great emphasis on his personal, as well as Ethiopia’s, role in post-World War II international affairs, and as such, had played a major role in peacemaking and contributed to mediation efforts in various African conflicts (e.g. the Congo, Biafra, Algeria, and Morocco). By the 1970s (at which time, he was at the advanced age of 80), Haile Selassie was widely regarded in the international community and respected as an elder statesman and a great African father figure.
Ethiopia and nearby countries in Africa
At the same time, however, Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia was mired in numerous internal problems, foremost of which was great social unrest generated by the deeply entrenched conservative monarchy, aristocratic nobility, and wealthy landowning and business classes that opposed reforms which were being called for by the various emerging militant sectors of society. In some regions, some landowners owned large tracts of agricultural land, relegating most of the rural population to tenant farmers and farm laborers in a semi-feudal, patronage system. Haile Selassie made some attempts to implement land reform and other measures of agrarian equality, but these were opposed by the wealthy landowners. Social tensions also existed among Ethiopia’s many ethnic groups, which were further compounded because of the monarch’s de facto absolute rule and sometimes inequitable policies that favored his own Amharic ethnic class to the detriment of other regional ethnic groups.
Ethnic tensions sometimes led to armed rebellion, such as those that occurred in northern Wollo in 1930, Tigray in 1941, and Gojjam in 1968. Haile Selassie placed much emphasis on promoting education, but his government made only modest gains to transform the elitist educational structure into a universal public school system, e.g. by the early 1970s, some 90% of Ethiopians were still illiterate. Ironically, however, Ethiopia’s educational system became the breeding ground for radical ideas, as university students, particularly those studying in Europe, became exposed to Marxism-Leninism. In the 1960s and 1970s, many ethnicity-motivated, separatist, or socialist movements emerged in Ethiopia. Among the more important Marxist groups were the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement and Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, while major regional movements included the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) and Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), both founded in 1960, and the Oromo Liberation Front, organized in 1973.
For Haile Selassie’s regime, the most serious among the regional groups was the ELP-led Eritrean insurgency. Eritrea historically had a long political development separate from Ethiopia, but the latter regarded Eritrea as an integral part of the Ethiopian Empire. In September 1952, the United Nations federated Eritrea (then under temporary British administration) with Ethiopia (the union known as the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation), which granted Eritrea broad administrative, legislative, judiciary, and fiscal autonomy but under the rule of the Ethiopian monarch. However, Eritreans desired full sovereignty and in September 1961, the ELF launched an eventually lengthy 30-year armed struggle for independence.
By the 1960s, Ethiopia’s feudalistic system, government corruption, and failure to implement land reform and other social programs were inciting student and activist groups to launch protest demonstrations and mass assemblies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Ultimately, however, it was the Ethiopian military that would set in motion the events that would overturn Ethiopia’s political system. In December 1960, reformist elements of the military, led by the commander of the Imperial Guard (the emperor’s personal security unit), launched a coup d’état to overthrow Haile Selassie, who was away on a state visit to Brazil. Most of the Ethiopian Armed Forces, however, remained loyal to the government, and the coup failed. In the aftermath, Haile Selassie strove to bring the military establishment under greater control, promoting more ethnic Amharic to the officer corps and plotting discord by playing military factions against each other.
However, discontent remained pervasive within the military, particularly among the rank-and-file soldiers, who chafed at the low pay and poor working conditions. In January 1974, in what became the first of a series of decisive events, soldiers stationed at Negele, Sidamo Province, mutinied in protest of low wages and other poor conditions; in the following days, military units in other locations mutinied as well. In February 1974, as a result of rising inflation and unemployment and deteriorating economic conditions resulting from the global oil crisis of the previous year (1973), teachers, workers, and students launched protest demonstrations and marches in Addis Ababa demanding price rollbacks, higher labor wages, and land reform in the countryside. These protests degenerated into bloody riots. In the aftermath, on February 28, 1974, long-time Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold resigned and was replaced by Endalkachew Makonnen, whose government raised the wages of military personnel and set price controls to curb inflation. Even so, the government, which was controlled by nobles, aristocrats, and wealthy landowners, refused or were unaware of the need to implement major reforms in the face of growing public opposition.
In March 1974, a group of military officers led by Colonel Alem Zewde Tessema formed the multi-unit “Armed Forces Coordinating Committee” (AFCC) consisting of representatives from different sectors of the Ethiopian military, tasked with enforcing cohesion among the various forces and assisting the government in maintaining authority in the face of growing unrest. In June 1974, reformist junior officers of the AFCC, desiring greater reforms and dissatisfied with what they saw was the AFCC’s close association with the government, broke away and formed their own group.
This latter group, which took the name “Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, soon grew to about 110 to 120 enlisted men and officers (none above the rank of major) from the 40 military and security units across the country, and elected Majors Mengistu Haile Mariam and Atnafu Abate as its chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. This group, which became known simply as Derg (an Ethiopian word meaning “Committee” or “Council”), had as its (initial) aims to serve as a conduit for various military and police units in order to maintain peace and order, and also to uphold the military’s integrity by resolving grievances, disciplining errant officers, and curbing corruption in the armed forces.
Derg operated anonymously (e.g. its members were not publicly known initially), but worked behind such populist slogans as “Ethiopia First”, “Land to the Peasants”, and “Democracy and Equality to all” to gain broad support among the military and general population. By July 1974, the Derg’s power was felt not only within the military but in the government itself, and Haile Selassie was forced to implement a number of political measures, including the release of political prisoners, the return of political exiles to the country, passage of a new constitution, and more critically, to allow Derg to work closely with the government. Under Derg pressure, the government of Prime Minister Makonnen collapsed; succeeding as Prime Minister was Mikael Imru, an aristocrat who held leftist ideas.