YARDSTICK INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT
COURSE TITLE: GLOBAL TRADING
DEGREE PROGRAM

GROUP ASSIGNMENT
NAME ID NO
1. BIZUNESH BEGASHAWE ……………………………………….. RDMGT /065/14
2. BRUK SHEWAYIRGA ………………………………………………….RDMGT 124/14
3. ESKEDAR NIGUSSIE ……………………………………………………RD ACF/082/14
4. HIRUT ZEWGE ……………………………………………………………RDMGT /006/14
5. LEMLEM KASSA ………………………………………………………...RDMGT /070/14

SUBMITTED TO

JANUARY 2023

ADDIS ABABA ETHIOPIA

The rise and reign of Haile Selassie I (1916–74)

Regent and heir apparent

Iyasu was replaced by Menilek’s daughter, Zauditu. Since it was considered unseemly for a
woman to serve in her own right, Ras Tafari, the son of Ras Makonnen and a cousin of Menilek,
served as Zauditu’s regent and heir apparent. The prince developed the rudiments of a modern
bureaucracy by recruiting the newly educated for government service. He also engineered
Ethiopia’s entry into the League of Nations in 1923, reasoning that collective security would
protect his backward country from aggression. To brighten Ethiopia’s external image, he hired
foreign advisers for key departments and set about abolishing slavery—a process possibly helped
by the stirrings in Ethiopia of a market economy.
By 1928, when Zauditu named Tafari king, the economy was booming, thanks mainly to the
export of coffee. In the countryside, local officials built roads and improved communications,
facilitating the penetration of traders and entrepreneurs. Ethiopians remained in charge of the
economy, since Tafari forced foreigners to take local partners and maintained tight control over
concessions.

Emperor
On April 1, 1930, Zauditu died, and Tafari declared himself emperor. He was crowned Haile
Selassie I (“Power of the Trinity”; his baptismal name) on November 2. In July 1931 the emperor
promulgated a constitution that enshrined as law his prerogative to delegate authority to an
appointed and indirectly elected bicameral parliament, among other modern institutions. During
1931–34 Haile Selassie instituted projects for roads, schools, hospitals, communications,
administration, and public services. The combined effect of these projects was to increase the
country’s exposure to the world economy. By 1932 revenues were pouring into Addis Ababa from
taxes applied to 25,000 tons of coffee exported each year.

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Haile Selassie I
Haile Selassie I in ceremonial uniform, c. 1930.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Conflict with Italy

Haile Selassie’s success persuaded Italy’s ruler Benito Mussolini to undertake a preemptive strike
before Ethiopia grew too strong to oppose Italian ambitions in the Horn of Africa. After an
Ethiopian patrol clashed with an Italian garrison at the Welwel oasis in the Ogaden in November–
December 1934, Rome began seriously preparing for war. Haile Selassie continued to trust in the
collective security promised by the League of Nations. Only on October 2, 1935, upon learning
that Italian forces had crossed the frontier, did he order mobilization. During the subsequent seven-
month Italo-Ethiopian War, the Italian command used air power and poison gas to separate, flank,
and destroy Haile Selassie’s poorly equipped armies. The emperor went into exile on May 2, 1936.
For five years (1936–41) Ethiopia was joined to Eritrea and Italian Somaliland to form Italian East
Africa. During this period Italy carried out a program of public works, concentrating especially on
highways and on agricultural and industrial development. Resistance to the occupation continued,
however. The Italians dominated the cities, towns, and major caravan routes, while Ethiopian
patriots harried the occupiers and sometimes tested the larger garrison towns. When Italy joined
the European war in June 1940, the United Kingdom recognized Haile Selassie as a full ally, and
the emperor was soon in Khartoum, Sudan, to help train a British-led Ethiopian army. This joint
force entered Gojam on January 20, 1941, and encountered an enemy quick to surrender. On May
5 the emperor triumphantly returned to Addis Ababa. Defying the British occupation authorities,
he quickly organized his own government.

Return to power
In February 1945 at a meeting with U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Haile Selassie submitted
memoranda stressing the imperative for recovering Eritrea and thereby gaining free access to the
sea. In 1948 and again in 1949, two commissions established by the wartime Allied Powers and by
the United Nations (UN) reported that Eritrea lacked national consciousness and an economy that

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could sustain independence. Washington, wishing to secure a communications base in Asmara
(Asmera) and naval facilities in Massawa—and also to counter possible subversion in the region—
supported Eritrea’s federation with Ethiopia. The union took place in September 1952.
During the 1950s Ethiopia’s coffee sold well in world markets. Revenues were used to centralize
the government, to improve communications, to develop a national system of education based on
the western model, and to modernize urban centres. In November 1955 the emperor promulgated a
revised constitution, which permitted the parliament to authorize finances and taxes, to question
ministers, and to disapprove imperial decrees. The constitution also introduced an elected lower
house of parliament, a theoretically independent judiciary, separation of powers, a catalog of
human rights, and a mandate for bureaucratic responsibility to the people. At the same time, the
emperor retained his power of decree and his authority to appoint the government. Among his
ministers, he subtly established competing power factions—a stratagem that had the ultimate
effect of retarding governmental functioning and bureaucratic modernization.

Internal conflicts and the fall of the monarchy

Some officials concluded that the country would move ahead only when the imperial regime was
destroyed. In December 1960, while the emperor was abroad, members of the security and military
forces attempted a coup d’état. The coup rapidly unraveled, but not before the country’s social and
economic problems had been described in radical terms. Even then, the emperor ignored the
coup’s significance; in February 1961 he began to name a new government that reflected the status
quo ante by depending on the landowning military, aristocracy, and oligarchy for authority. Haile
Selassie showed himself unable to implement significant land reform, and, as a result, progressives
and students opposed the regime. The monarchy gradually lost its credibility, especially as it
became embroiled in intractable conflicts in Eritrea and with Somalia.
Somalia’s independence in 1960 stimulated Somali nationalists in Ethiopia’s Ogaden to rebel in
February 1963. When Somalia joined the fighting, the Ethiopian army and air force smashed its
enemy. Somalia’s consequent military alliance with the Soviet Union upset the regional balance of
power, driving up Ethiopia’s arms expenditures and necessitating more U.S. assistance.
Meanwhile, an insurrection in Eritrea, which had begun in 1960 mainly among Muslim
pastoralists in the western lowlands, came to attract highland Christians disaffected by the
government’s dissolution of the federation in 1962 and the imposition of Amharic in the schools.

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At the same time, an increasingly radical student movement in Addis Ababa identified Haile
Selassie as an agent of U.S. imperialism and his landowning oligarchs as the enemy of the people.
Under the motto “Land to the tiller,” the students sought to limit property size and rights, and, by
fostering debate on the issue of ethnicity, they confronted a problem marginalized by Haile
Selassie. Some students espoused the Leninist notion that nationalities had the right to secede and,
in so doing, gave strength and ideological justification to the Eritrean rebellion.
By the early 1970s one-third of Ethiopia’s 45,000 soldiers were in Eritrea, and others were putting
down rebellions in Balē, Sīdamo, and Gojam. In January 1974 there began a series of mutinies led
by junior officers and senior noncommissioned officers, who blamed the imperial elites for their
impoverishment and for the country’s economic and social ills. For the government the situation
was greatly worsened by drought and famine in the north, the denial of which became an
international scandal. In June representatives of the mutineers constituted themselves as the
Coordinating Committee (Derg) of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army. Maj.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, of Harer’s 3rd Division, was elected chairman. The Derg proceeded to
dismantle the monarchy’s institutions and to arrest Haile Selassie’s cronies, confidantes, and
advisers. It then campaigned against the old and senile emperor, who was deposed on September
12, 1974. The Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC) was established. The PMAC
was administered by the Derg and assumed the functions of government, with Lieut. Gen. Aman
Andom as chairman and head of state and Mengistu as the first vice-chairman. Tensions within the
Derg soon fueled a power struggle and led to Bloody Saturday (November 23, 1974), when as
many as 60 leaders, including Andom, were executed. Andom was replaced by Brig. Gen. Teferi
Banti. The new government issued a Declaration of Socialism on December 20, 1974.

Socialist Ethiopia (1974–91)

The Derg borrowed its ideology from competing Marxist parties, all of which arose from the
student movement. One of them, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), believed so
strongly in civilian rule that it undertook urban guerrilla war against the military rulers, and
anarchy ensued in the following years.
In February 1977 Mengistu (now a lieutenant colonel) survived a battle between his supporters
and those of rivals on the PMAC. Andom and several other members were killed, and Mengistu
seized complete power as chairman and head of state. A series of EPRP attacks against Derg

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members and their supporters, known as the White Terror, was countered by Mengistu’s Red
Terror, a bloody campaign that crushed armed opponents among the EPRP and other groups, as
well as members of the civilian populace. As a result of the campaign, which continued into 1978,
thousands of Ethiopia’s best-educated and idealistic young people were killed or exiled; in all, as
many as 100,000 people were killed, and thousands more were tortured or imprisoned.
Meanwhile, in May and June 1977, Somalia’s army advanced into the Ogaden. The U.S.S.R.
labeled Somalia the aggressor and diverted arms shipments to Ethiopia, where Soviet and allied
troops trained and armed a People’s Militia, provided fighting men, and reequipped the army.
Unable to entice the United States into resupplying its troops and faced with renewed Ethiopian
military vigor, Somalia withdrew in early 1978. Mengistu quickly shifted troops to Eritrea, where
by year’s end the Eritrean nationalists had been pushed back into mountainous terrain around
Nakʾfa.

Land reform and famine

Mengistu sought to transform Ethiopia into a command state led by a disciplined and loyal party
that would control all organs of authority. To this end a land-reform proclamation of 1975
transferred ownership of all land to the state and provided allotments of no more than 25 acres (10
hectares) to individual peasants who farmed the land themselves. Extensive nationalization of
industry, banking, insurance, large-scale trade, and urban land and extra dwellings completed the
reforms and wiped out the economic base of the old ruling class. To implement the reforms,
adjudicate disputes, and administer local affairs, peasants’ associations were organized in the
countryside and precinct organizations (kebele) in the towns. In 1984 the Workers’ Party of
Ethiopia was formed, with Mengistu as secretary-general, and in 1987 a new parliament
inaugurated the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, with Mengistu as president.
Despite initial expectations, farmers failed to generate the high yields expected from the land
reform, for there was little incentive for them to do so. Moreover, their plots were tiny, rendering
the legal limit of 25 acres irrelevant. Holdings varied according to the country’s different regions,
but overall probably averaged not much more than 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares). In order to feed
Ethiopia’s cities and the army, the government tried to force the peasants’ associations to deliver
grain at below-market prices, a measure that alienated the peasants and did nothing to stimulate
production. Meanwhile, drought intensified yearly from 1980, building to a climax in 1984, when

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the small rains were scanty and the main rains failed altogether. Famine ensued, government
controls limiting the mobility with which peasants had responded to previous shortfalls.
Ideological suspicions precluded the West from responding to alarms that the Ethiopian
government put forward in the spring of 1984 following the small rains, and its own preoccupation
with celebrating its 10th anniversary and founding the Workers’ Party led the government to cover
up the developing famine in the Fall of that same year. With one-sixth of Ethiopia’s people at risk
of starvation, Western countries made available enough surplus grain to end the crisis by mid-
1985. Donors were not so forthcoming for a mammoth population-resettlement program that
proposed to move people from the drought-prone and crowded north to the west and south, where
supposedly surplus lands were available. The Mengistu regime handled the shift callously and did
not have the necessary resources to provide proper housing, tools, medical treatment, or food for
the 600,000 farming families it moved. Resources were also lacking for a related villagization
program, which had the putative aim of concentrating scattered populations into villages where
they might receive modern services. As late as 1990 most villages lacked the promised amenities,
in part because of resource-draining civil strife in the north.

Challenges to the regime

By 1985–86 the government was embattled throughout most of Eritrea and Tigray, but Mengistu
simply stepped up recruitment and asked the U.S.S.R. for more arms. In December 1987 the
Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) broke through the Ethiopian lines before Nakʾfa and
waged increasingly successful war with weapons captured from demoralized government troops.
In early 1988 the EPLF began to coordinate its attacks with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front
(TPLF), which had long been fighting for the autonomy of Tigray and for the reconstitution of
Ethiopia on the basis of ethnically autonomous regions. The Soviets refused to ship more arms,
and in February 1989 a series of defeats and a worsening lack of weaponry forced the government
to evacuate Tigray. The TPLF then organized the largely Amhara Ethiopian People’s Democratic
Movement. Together, these two groups formed the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic
Front (EPRDF), and their forces easily advanced into Gonder and Welo provinces. The following
year the EPLF occupied Massawa; this broke the Ethiopian stranglehold on supplies entering the
country and demonstrated that the government no longer ruled in Tigray and Eritrea. Shortly

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thereafter, when the TPLF cut the Addis Ababa–Gonder road and put Gojam at risk, Mengistu
announced the end of many of the regime’s most unpopular socialist measures.
The peasants immediately abandoned their new villages for their old homesteads, dismantled
cooperatives, and redistributed land and capital goods. They ejected or ignored party and
government functionaries, in several cases killing recalcitrant administrators. The regime was thus
weakened in the countryside—not least in southern Ethiopia, where the long-dormant Oromo
Liberation Front (OLF) became active. By May 1991, with EPRDF forces controlling Tigray,
Welo, Gonder, Gojam, and about half of Shewa, it was obvious that the army did not have
sufficient morale, manpower, weapons, munitions, and leadership to stop the rebels’ advance on
Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, and on May 28 the EPRDF took power.

Transition (1991–95)
The new government, led by a Tigrayan, the EPRDF chairman Meles Zenawi, claimed that it
would democratize Ethiopia through recognition of the country’s ethnic heterogeneity. No longer
would Ethiopia be maintained by force; rather, it would be a voluntary federation of its many
peoples. To this end the EPRDF and other political groups, including the OLF, agreed to the
creation of a transitional government that would engineer a new constitution and elections, to a
national charter that recognized an ethnic division of political power, and to the right of
nationalities to secede from Ethiopian—thus paving the way for Eritrea’s legal independence,
which was official on May 24, 1993.
The new regime began to lay the foundations for Ethiopia’s first federal administrative structure,
the component units consisting of ostensibly ethnically homogeneous regions. There was little
lessening of control from the centre, however, as the ruling parties of the regional governments
intimately affiliated politically and ideologically with the EPRDF. Many of the country’s elite
feared that the regime was weakening the country’s unity. The Amhara, identified by the EPRDF
as colonizers and unaccustomed to thinking of themselves as but one of the country’s many
different ethnic groups, were particularly affronted by the apparent fragmentation of the country.
The government fought back by denouncing Amhara leaders as antidemocratic chauvinists and by
muzzling the press through the application of a new law, which, ironically, primarily served to end
decades of systematic censorship under previous regimes but also established media regulations
and penalties. In the provinces the government did not bother to maintain even the guise of

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freedom: there the suppression of anti-EPRDF forces, especially the OLF, was so blatant as to be
noticed by the members of an international team sent to observe hastily called regional elections in
June 1992. The OLF left the government over the conduct of these elections and has been in
increasingly armed opposition ever since.
Throughout 1992–93 the transitional government worked with donor governments and the World
Bank to forge a structural-adjustment program. This program devalued the Ethiopian currency,
sharply reduced government intervention in the economy, dictated redundancies in the civil
service, and made it easier for foreign companies to invest in Ethiopia and repatriate their profits.
However, the government refused to denationalize land, and foreign investment was slow to
return. The economy grew modestly but experienced no structural transformations. Yet another
famine, stemming from a lack of national integration and the stifling overregulation of business,
and again accompanied by drought, was signaled in 1994. Millions of Ethiopians were put at risk,
largely in the north and east. The government called upon the international donor community for
help, but, by failing to find measures to stimulate agricultural production, Ethiopia remained
unable to finance its own development and to create the surplus needed to relieve its own
population. Meanwhile, population growth had reduced the size of the average Ethiopian farm to
under 2.5 acres (1 hectare).
Harold G. Marcus Donald Edward Crummy
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Political and economic reforms
In 1994 the EPRDF adopted Ethiopia’s third constitution in 40 years; it was promulgated in 1995,
creating the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. This constitution enshrined the principles of
regionalism and ethnic autonomy, devolving power to regional states, several of them coalitions of
smaller ethnic groups. It also enshrined, for the first time as a constitutional principle, national
ownership of land. The country’s first multiparty elections were also held in 1995, but they were
boycotted by most opposition groups in protest against the harassment, arrests, and other actions
instigated by the EPRDF-led government. As a result, the multiethnic EPRDF easily retained
control of the federal government and most of the regional states. Negasso Gidada, a Christian
Oromo who had served as minister of information in the transitional government, became
president, and Meles became prime minister. The ethnic balance of the country was reflected in
the careful selection of members for the Council of Ministers.

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The economic-reform efforts that had begun in 1991 were somewhat successful, as the economy
showed improvement in the mid-1990s. However, some aspects of reform, such as privatization of
state-owned enterprises, progressed slowly, and the government’s cautious approach to economic
liberalization remained an obstacle for foreign investment, as did the issue of nationalized
property, which continued to be a source of consternation.

War with Eritrea

In 1998 simmering border tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia erupted into war. At the heart of
the dispute was some 250 square miles (640 square km) of land near Badme, but the conflict
quickly spread to two other areas, Zela Ambesa and the important Eritrean port city of Assab. A
cease-fire signed in June 2000 provided for a UN mission (United Nations Mission in Eritrea and
Ethiopia; UNMEE) to monitor the cease-fire and deploy troops in a buffer zone between the two
countries while the border was being demarcated. A peace agreement signed in Algeria in
December ended the conflict, although relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea remained tense, and
UNMEE troops stayed to monitor the truce and supervise the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from
Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian government was not pleased with the border demarcation
proposed in 2002, as the town of Badme was awarded to Eritrea, and Meles protested this
decision. Discussions continued during the next few years. UNMEE troops remained until July
2008 but ultimately left with the issue of demarcation still unsettled.

Dissent, protests, and increasing oppression

Meanwhile, the EPRDF remained in power into the 2000s, although it was weakened by internal
dissent in 2001 when the EPRDF’s TPLF faction split over the government’s anticorruption
policies and Meles’s embrace of more-liberal economic policies. The TPLF members who
opposed Meles were purged from the party and held under house arrest. President Negasso sided
with the TPLF splinter group, and, as a result, he was ousted from the leadership of his own party,
the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO). He did, however, keep his position as
federal president until his term was up in September 2001. He was succeeded by Girma Wolde-
Giorgis, who, like Negasso, was an Oromo, although he was not affiliated with the OPDO.
Against the backdrop of political infighting, drought and famine continued to periodically plague

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the country, particularly in 2003, when the crisis was exacerbated by widespread incidence of
waterborne illnesses and a malaria epidemic.
A strong performance by opposition parties in the May 2005 elections greatly increased the
number of seats they held in the legislature. The EPRDF remained in power but with less of a
majority and amid questionable circumstances. Although the elections were initially found to have
been generally credible, there were reports of voter intimidation and other problems, and
allegations of irregularities from more than half the country’s electoral constituencies delayed the
announcement of the results for eight weeks. Accusations of fraud, as well as the final outcome of
the elections, led to considerable protests and demonstrations in Addis Ababa; ensuing clashes
between protesters and security forces left more than three dozen people dead, hundreds injured,
and 3,000 arrested. This was followed in November by additional rioting, which left dozens more
dead. Some of the victorious opposition candidates refused to take their legislative seats, in protest
against the questionable circumstances surrounding the elections and aftermath; some were
arrested for “violent activities aimed at subverting the constitutional order.” Tensions continued
into the next year, with thousands of Ethiopians—including activists, journalists, and other
legislators—being detained across the country. Many detainees were released periodically
throughout 2006, often without having had any charges filed against them. In May 2006 the
EPRDF reached an agreement with the two primary opposition political parties, which then took
their seats in the legislature.
More than a decade after his ouster, former Derg ruler Mengistu and his legacy still weighed
heavily in the Ethiopian consciousness. To the dismay of many, Mengistu continued to live in
exile in Zimbabwe, despite the Ethiopian government’s repeated attempts beginning in the 1990s
to lobby for his extradition. Nevertheless, he was tried, in absentia, on charges of genocide for his
role in the Red Terror campaign. In December 2006 he was found guilty, and the next year he was
given a life sentence. Following a successful appeal from the prosecution, he was sentenced to
death in May 2008.
Also in 2006, Ethiopia sent troops to neighbouring Somalia to defend that country’s beleaguered
transitional government against rebel forces, and in December Ethiopia began a coordinated air
and ground war there. Ethiopian troops had withdrawn from the country by January 2009,
although they remained close to the Ethiopian-Somali border in case future intervention was

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deemed necessary. The intervention in the Somali crisis heightened the existing tensions with
Eritrea, which supported Somalia’s rebels.
General elections were held in Ethiopia in May 2010. With the memories of the protests, violence,
and deaths that followed the 2005 general elections still fresh in the minds of many Ethiopians, the
political climate prior to the 2010 elections was somewhat subdued, although not free of
controversy. Opposition groups complained that they were not given as much media coverage as
the ruling EPRDF and that the government was harassing some opposition leaders. Those claims
were supported by some international observers, who noted that not all political groups
participating in the elections were afforded the same campaigning opportunities. Some
international observers also noted evidence of voter intimidation and violence, although it was not
considered to be enough of a factor to affect the final outcome of the elections, which were held on
May 23. The EPRDF was overwhelmingly victorious in securing the majority of legislative seats,
allowing Meles to remain prime minister. International observers deemed the electoral process to
be organized and largely peaceful overall, yet some also noted that it did not quite meet
international standards.
Meles’s health became the target of speculation in mid-2012, after he was conspicuously absent
from the public eye. After weeks of such speculation, the government issued a comment in July,
noting that Meles was doing well as he recuperated from an illness, which was not disclosed.
Meles died on August 20, 2012, while he was abroad for medical treatment. He was succeeded by
the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Hailemariam Desalegn.
The next year saw the regularly scheduled end of Girma’s second presidential term. On October 7,
2013, the parliament elected veteran diplomat Mulatu Teshome Wirtu to succeed him. Prior to his
election as president, Mulatu had served as ambassador to Turkey since 2006. He also had held
other ambassadorships and ministerial posts as well.
Although Ethiopia had seen considerable economic growth under EPRDF rule—the country’s
economy was among the fastest growing in the world—that was contrasted by a worsening human
rights record. In 2009 a harsh antiterrorism law had been passed, which in the following years was
one of the tools used by the EPRDF-led government to suppress dissent. Numerous journalists and
opposition activists were arrested, many of whom were charged with having violated that law;
many others fled the country. In 2011 the government declared that two armed opposition groups
as well as an opposition movement, Ginbot 7, were terrorist organizations and banned them, which

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led to a slew of arrests and antiterrorism charges against those accused of having interviewed or
otherwise interacted with members of the proscribed groups. Prominent among those charged
under the antiterrorism law was journalist Eskinder Nega, who was arrested in 2011 and later
sentenced to 18 years in prison.
As the May 2015 general elections approached, opposition groups complained of harassment by
the government. The government was also criticized for stifling the independent media and
preventing any meaningful political discourse prior to the election. The ruling EPRDF and its
affiliates won every legislative seat in the May 24 election, and on October 5 Hailemariam was
unanimously reelected prime minister by the lower legislative house.
Meanwhile, a highly controversial plan by the government to expand Addis Ababa by linking it
with areas in the neighbouring Oromia region generated months of protest by the Oromo people in
2015; the plan was abandoned in January 2016. More protests occurred in 2016—primarily in the
Oromia and Amhara regions and, to a lesser extent, in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and
Peoples’ region—fueled by issues such as the government’s questionable detentions of activists
and journalists, feelings of political marginalization, and general discontent with the government.
Security forces often responded harshly to protests and demonstrations, killing and wounding
some of the protesters and arbitrarily arresting thousands more, which elicited condemnation from
human rights groups. The government declared a state of emergency in October 2016; it was
finally rescinded in August 2017.

Winds of change
In early 2018 the government surprised many by releasing thousands of prisoners, including
Eskinder as well as other well-known individuals who had been detained for speaking out against
the current administration. The government also announced that it was closing a notorious
detention centre. The moves were intended to ease tensions and allow for political dialogue
between the government and the opposition. Those events were followed by the equally surprising
resignation of Hailemariam, which he announced on February 15, 2018; he agreed to stay on until
a new prime minister could be appointed. Hailemariam stated that he hoped his resignation would
help usher in political reform. The next day the government declared another state of emergency; it
was expected to last six months and was intended to limit the ongoing unrest. On March 25
Eskinder and several other journalists and activists who had been recently released from prison

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were rearrested, allegedly for holding a gathering in violation of the declared state of emergency
and having an older, prohibited version of the country’s flag.
The ruling EPRDF selected a successor to Hailemariam in late March. Abiy Ahmed, of the Oromo
ethnic group, was first elected as chair of the ruling coalition on March 27, and he was then elected
as prime minister by the lower legislative house on April 2 and was sworn in on the same day.
Abiy was the first Oromo to hold the position of prime minister, and it was hoped that his ascent to
the post would help calm the ongoing tensions between that group and the government. In his
inaugural address, Abiy promised to improve conditions in the country, including strengthening
the democratic process, fighting corruption, and growing the economy. He also vowed to work
toward resolving the long-standing conflict with Eritrea.

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Abiy Ahmed
Abiy Ahmed, 2018.
Office of the Prime Minister -Ethiopia
In the months after his inauguration, Abiy quickly made efforts to fulfill his vows. Domestically,
thousands more political prisoners were pardoned and released, including Eskinder and prominent
opposition leader Andargachew Tsige. The government lifted its latest state of emergency ahead of
schedule, on June 5. The government also removed Ginbot 7, the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF), and the OLF from its list of organizations deemed to be terrorist groups. In August
the ONLF declared a cease-fire, and in October the government and the group signed a peace
agreement that was intended to end the hostilities that had plagued the Ogaden region for more
than 30 years. On the economic front, Abiy announced that the government would allow for some
degree of privatization of some state-owned industries, such as the national airlines and the
country’s telecommunications provider, in an effort to encourage domestic and foreign investment
and to spur economic growth. The new developments as well as the pace at which they were
unveiled surprised Ethiopians and the international community alike.
Perhaps nothing was as astonishing as the efforts of Abiy and the EPRDF-led government to
achieve peace with Eritrea and the swiftness with which they moved. On June 5 Abiy announced
that Ethiopia would finally honour the terms of the 2000 peace agreement that was meant to end
its war with Eritrea; those terms included accepting and implementing the controversial 2002
ruling that demarcated the border between the two countries. That announcement led to a flurry of
diplomatic overtures, and in early July Abiy and Eritrean Pres. Isaias Afwerki met in Eritrea. The
two agreed to reopen their borders and reestablish ties between the two countries in the areas of
diplomacy, trade, communications, and transportation. Most stunning was the joint statement from
Abiy and Isaias on July 9 announcing that the state of war that had existed between their two
countries for 20 years had come to an end.
Abiy formed a new cabinet in October 2018. It was notable not only for its smaller size—Abiy cut
the number of posts in the cabinet from 28 to 20—but, more strikingly, because Abiy appointed

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women to half of the positions, providing the country with its first gender-balanced cabinet. Later
that month President Mulatu resigned before the end of his six-year term, paving the way for a
new president to be selected by lawmakers. On October 25 the parliament elected Sahle-Work
Zewde to succeed him; she was sworn in the same day, becoming the first woman to serve as
president of Ethiopia. Sahle-Work was an accomplished diplomat who had served as an
ambassador for Ethiopia and had held several positions with the United Nations.
In October 2019 Abiy was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. The Nobel Committee highlighted
his actions in resolving Ethiopia’s long-running border dispute with Eritrea as an example of his
efforts to attain peace.
In November 2019 the Sidamo people held a referendum to determine if there was enough support
to create a new ethnic-based regional state for themselves, an option provided to all ethnic groups
under the country’s constitution. The referendum passed, with more than 98 percent of Sidamo
voters supporting the measure.

Challenges, ethnic tensions, and the Tigrayan conflict

Abiy’s reforms and changes, while welcomed and lauded by many in Ethiopia and abroad, were
criticized by others for their scope and the speed at which they occurred. One of the consequences
of the loosening of restrictions was that existing ethnic tensions that had been held to a simmer
under the previous administration could now rise to the surface, the repercussions of which were
sometimes violent, as were the actions of some who felt threatened by the rapid reforms. Shortly
after Abiy took office, a grenade was detonated near him at a rally in June 2018; while he was not
hurt, two others were killed and many more injured. A year later, several high-ranking officials
were killed in what the government alleged was a failed coup attempt in the Amhara region. The
murder in June 2020 of Oromo activist and songwriter Hachalu Hundessa, presumed by many to
have been politically motivated. Sparked weeks of protests and ethnic violence that led to more
than 280 deaths.
Abiy’s reforms also had the effect of sidelining the TPLF—despite Tigrayans’ constituting less
than 10 percent of the country’s population, the TPLF had previously been the dominant member
of the ruling EPRDF coalition—and led to growing resentment from that party. Furthermore,
many Tigrayan officials and military officers were caught in a crackdown on corruption during
Abiy’s administration.

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In late 2019 Abiy championed the dissolution of the EPRDF, the process of which the TPLF
decried and refused to participate in. In its place Abiy formed the Prosperity Party, which included
three of the four parties that had constituted the EPRDF—the TPLF refused to be a part of it—and
several smaller regional ethnic-based parties that had opted to dissolve and join the new party.
The next round of general elections, scheduled to take place in 2020, were delayed for a year due
to the COVID-19 pandemic. The TPLF and some other opposition leaders called the
postponement a power grab, however, accusing Abiy of delaying the elections in an effort to
remain in power past his mandate. In spite of the official delay, officials in the Tigray region held
regional elections in September 2020, inflaming regional officials’ already tense relationship with
the federal government. The next month, the federal government began withholding funds from
the regional administration.
The animosity between Tigray and the federal government erupted into violence in early
November. A communications blackout in the region made it difficult to know exactly how events
were transpiring on the ground, but TPLF forces were accused of having attacked and looted
federal military bases in the region, after which federal troops attacked and launched an invasion
of Tigray. Almost immediately Tigrayan forces claimed that Eritrean troops were attacking them
as well, which officials from both Ethiopia and Eritrea denied. In March 2021, however, Abiy
admitted that Eritrean troops were involved in the conflict. Meanwhile, although Abiy had
declared victory in Tigray after federal troops had taken the region’s capital, Mekele, in late
November 2020, some fighting in the region continued on for months, displacing some two
million Tigrayans and triggering famine conditions. All sides were accused of having committed
human rights abuses during the conflict.

2021 elections, Tigrayan rebel advance, and expansion of fighting

It was against this backdrop of conflict upon which the delayed federal elections were held on June
21, 2021, though not across the entire country. In addition to Tigray, polls were not held in the
Somali and Harari regions, the election board citing insecurity and logistical problems as the
reason; elections were scheduled to be held in the latter two areas in September. In Oromia,
elections were held but opposition parties in the region boycotted the polls. When results were
released in July, they showed that the Prosperity Party had won an overwhelming majority of the
contested parliament seats.

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Meanwhile, during the week of the elections, fighting escalated and Tigrayan forces launched
attacks heading toward Mekele. On June 28, federal troops and interim government officials
abruptly withdrew from the capital and the broader Tigray region. They were quickly followed by
Tigrayan forces, who retook the capital and other areas in the region. The same day, the federal
government declared a unilateral cease-fire, citing humanitarian reasons. Fighting continued,
though, and in July it was clear that the conflict had drawn in additional groups and had spread to
other regions. In August the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a group of insurgents
that had splintered from the OLF, announced that they had formed an alliance.

The Derg and the West

Although the Derg depended on the Soviet Union and its allies for military aid, it was just as
reliant on the West for economic development and relief aid (see Balance of Payments and
Foreign Assistance, ch. 3). For example, the European Community (EC) was Ethiopia's most
significant source of economic aid. In the early 1980s, Western sources accounted for more than
90 percent of Ethiopia's economic aid, most of which came from the EC. Since then, communist
countries had increased their proportion of total aid to Ethiopia to about 20 percent. Other
multilateral and bilateral donors also had provided increased aid. For example, after refraining
from giving aid to Addis Ababa between 1975 and 1981, the World Bank (see Glossary) pledged
more than US$250 million in project aid, the European Development Fund promised about
US$300 million, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF--see Glossary) agreed to a loan of
almost US$100 million. The regime accepted the IMF loan even though it claimed to disagree
with IMF policies. Moreover, a joint venture law in 1983 and a foreign investment policy initiated
in 1988 had stimulated the gradual return of private investors, although the level of such
investments remained low.
Even though Ethiopia was dependent on Western economic aid, no Western donor was able to
influence day-to-day economic policy on a regular basis. For instance, the Swedish International
Development Authority, the United States Agency for International Development (AID), the
World Bank, and other donor agencies historically had favored the development of agricultural
cooperatives if they were organized on free-market principles. However, the Ethiopian regime
attempted to guide the development of cooperatives so that they might be transformed into
socialist collectives compatible with a centrally planned and directed economy. Like the imperial

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government before it, the Derg attempted to play off a multiplicity of donors against one another
and thereby maximize certain benefits without surrendering its sovereignty.

Ethiopia's Border Politics

Africa Hall headquarters of the Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa. The Organization
of African Unity conducted its first meeting at this site. Courtsey United Nations
As the Mengistu regime attempted to consolidate its rule, it had to cope with serious border
problems, particularly with Somalia and Sudan. The point at issue with Somalia was the Ogaden
region, an area that Mogadishu claimed as part of the historical Somali nation that had been seized
by the Ethiopians during the colonial partition of the Horn of Africa. In fact, Ethiopia's only
undefined boundary was the border it shared with the former Italian Somaliland. On maps drawn
after 1950, this boundary is termed "Administrative Line" (see fig. 1). Upon gaining independence
from European colonial rule in 1960, the inhabitants of the Republic of Somalia nurtured the hope
that all Somali eventually would be united in a modern nation-state. Somali claims to the Ogaden,
Djibouti, and parts of Kenya, however, had been consistently rejected by the UN, the OAU, and
most of the world's sovereign states. Still, Somalia's leadership remained unwilling to forsake
these claims publicly.
In 1961, less than a year after Somalia gained independence, its troops clashed with Ethiopian
soldiers along their common border. In 1964 renewed tensions erupted into a minor regional war.
In both cases, Somalia was defeated. Ethnic Somali in Kenya's northeast also unsuccessfully
challenged that country's new government in the early 1960s. Pan-Somalism, then, served as a
basis for the continuance of cooperative relations between Nairobi and Addis Ababa, despite the
change of regime in Ethiopia. The two countries first signed a mutual defense agreement in 1964
that resulted in the creation of the Ethiopia-Kenya Border Administration Commission.
The Ogaden War (1977-78) was the most serious border conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia
(see The Somali, ch. 5). Beginning in the early summer of 1977, SNA units and WSLF guerrillas,
a movement of ethnic Somali opposed to incorporation in Ethiopia, occupied vast tracts of the
Ogaden and forced the Ethiopian army into fortresses at Jijiga, Harer, and Dire Dawa for almost

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eight months. The intention was to separate the Ogaden from Ethiopia to set the stage for ethnic
Somali in the region to decide their own future.
It was only with Soviet and Cuban assistance that the Derg regained control over the region by
early 1978. The Soviet Union not only provided massive amounts of military equipment but also
advisers, who trained Ethiopian soldiers and pilots. Moreover, Cuban troops spearheaded the
counteroffensive that began in March 1978. Cuban and Ethiopian troops quickly defeated the SNA
and WSLF once the counteroffensive began. Many WSLF fighters returned to their villages or
took refuge inside Somalia. In addition, some 650,000 Somali and Oromo fled from southeastern
Ethiopia into Somalia by early 1978 to escape unsettled local conditions and repression by
Ethiopian armed forces. After the defeat, Somali opposition reverted to sporadic guerrilla
ambushes and occasional acts of sabotage.
On April 4, 1988, after several preparatory meetings, Ethiopia and Somalia signed a joint
communiqu‚ that supposedly ended the Ogaden conflict. According to the communiqu‚'s terms,
the two countries committed themselves to withdrawing their military forces fifteen kilometers
from the border, exchanging prisoners of war, restoring diplomatic relations, and refraining from
supporting each other's antigovernment guerrilla groups. Reportedly, a separate secret accord
contained a Somali renunciation of all claims to the Ogaden region. From Mengistu's point of
view, the joint communiqu‚ secured Ethiopia's southeastern border, thereby enabling Addis Ababa
to devote more resources to the struggle against the EPLF and TPLF in northern Ethiopia.
Nevertheless, by 1991 it had become evident that Ethiopia had failed to honor the provisions of the
joint communiqu‚. The Mengistu regime allowed the anti-Siad Barre Somali National Movement
(SNM) to maintain offices in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa and to operate five training camps near
Dire Dawa. Additionally, the Ethiopian government still provided mat‚riel and logistical support
to the SNM. Despite these violations, Somalia refrained from reinitiating hostilities with Ethiopia.
Relations between Ethiopia and Sudan were generally good until the mid-1980s, when the
Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) emerged to challenge the hegemony of Khartoum.
Emperor Haile Selassie had been instrumental in mediating an end to the Sudanese civil war in
1972. However, Ethiopia regularly expressed disappointment that the Sudanese government had
not prevented Eritrean guerrillas from operating out of its territory. Sudan attempted to negotiate
an end to the Eritrean conflict in 1975 but was unsuccessful. When Ethiopia turned to the Soviet
Union and away from the United States, Sudan's government became concerned. Sudanese

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president Jaafar an Nimeiri had accused the Soviet Union of having inspired coup attempts against
his regime in 1971 and 1976. Sudan recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia in January 1977, and for
several years serious border tensions existed between the two countries.
Ethiopia's turn toward the Soviet Union caused Sudan to seek the support of new allies in
preparing for the possibility of external invasions sponsored by Khartoum's regional enemies.
Nimeiri decided to openly support certain Eritrean liberation movements. In addition, he supported
Somalia during the Ogaden War. Nimeiri claimed that he wanted to build a "high wall against
communism" in the Horn of Africa and agreed to participate with the United States, Kenya, Egypt,
Somalia, and Oman in the development of the RDF. By 1980 the tensions between Sudan and
Ethiopia had abated, however, with the signing of a peace treaty calling for the mutual respect of
the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the two countries.
The 1981 tripartite agreement among Ethiopia, Libya, and South Yemen undermined relations
between Addis Ababa and Khartoum. For some time, the Libyan government had been trying to
overthrow Nimeiri. Now Ethiopia appeared to be joining the Libyan effort. Border tensions
between the two countries also increased after Ethiopia started supporting the SPLA.
After Nimeiri was overthrown in 1985, Sadiq al Mahdi's regime made it clear that it wanted to
improve relations with Ethiopia and Libya. Supposedly, this was the first step in the resolution of
Sudan's civil war. The change in regimes in Sudan also prompted deterioration in United States-
Sudanese relations, manifested by Khartoum's cancellation of the agreement calling for the
participation of Sudanese troops in the Operation Bright Star exercises. Despite Sudan's
estrangement from the United States and Mahdi's growing closeness to Libya after 1985, there was
no substantive improvement in Ethiopian-Sudanese relations. The problem continued to center on
Sudan's support for Eritrean rebels and Mengistu's continued support of the SPLA. By 1989,
following the overthrow of Sadiq al Mahdi, Khartoum and Addis Ababa had offered to negotiate
their respective internal conflicts, but nothing tangible came of this.

Addis Ababa and the Middle East

To undermine regional support for the Eritrean movements, after 1987 the Ethiopian government
tried to develop better relations with several Arab countries. Between 1987 and 1989, high-level
Ethiopian delegations visited Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. In the fall of 1988,
Mengistu paid a two-day visit to Syria to explain to President Hafiz al Assad the various reforms

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the Ethiopian regime had recently made, including the creation of autonomous regions, designed
to be responsive to the desires of groups like the Eritreans. Prime Minister Fikre-Selassie
Wogderes made a visit to Cairo in November 1988 to seek improved relations with Egypt and to
express support for Egypt's offer to negotiate a settlement of the Eritrean conflict. Despite these
moves, Ethiopia's relations with the Middle East remained minimal.
By 1989 the lack of progress toward improved relations with Arab countries and the desperate
need for arms appeared to have inspired Ethiopia to develop closer ties with Israel. Subsequently,
diplomatic relations between the two countries, which had been broken off at the time of the
October 1973 War, were restored. Approximately 10,000 Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews; also called
Falasha) had been spirited out of Ethiopia to Israel in 1984 in a secret airlift known as Operation
Moses, and Israel remained committed to securing the emigration of the remaining Beta Israel. In
return, Israel agreed to provide the Mengistu regime with military assistance (see Ethnic Groups,
Ethnicity, and Language, ch. 2).
Israel obtained the release of an additional large number of Beta Israel in May 1991 in the midst of
the collapse of the Mengistu regime. Negotiations for another Beta Israel exodus were already
under way, and large numbers of them had already been brought to Addis Ababa when the military
government came under intense pressure from EPRDF forces. At the behest of both Israel and the
United States, the government agreed to release the Beta Israel against an Israeli payment of
US$35 million. On May 24-26, in what was called Operation Solomon, some 15,000 Beta Israel
were airlifted from Ethiopia to Israel, leaving an estimated 5,000 behind, mostly around Gonder.

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