HISTORY
Ethiopia
is credited with being the origin of mankind. Bones discovered
in eastern Ethiopia date back 3.2 million years. Ethiopia is the
oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in
the world. Herodotus, the Greek historian of the fifth century
B.C. describes ancient Ethiopia in his writings. The Old Testament
of the Bible records the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem.
According to legend, Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba, founded the Ethiopian Empire. Missionaries from
Egypt and Syria introduced Christianity in the fourth century
A.D. Following the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Ethiopia
was gradually cut off from European Christendom. The Portuguese
established contact with Ethiopia in 1493, primarily to strengthen
their influence over the Indian Ocean and to convert Ethiopia
to Roman Catholicism. There followed a century of conflict between
pro- and anti-Catholic factions, resulting in the expulsion of
all foreign missionaries in the 1630s. This period of bitter religious
conflict contributed to hostility toward foreign Christians and
Europeans, which persisted into the 20th century and was a factor
in Ethiopia's isolation until the mid-19th century.
Under
the Emperors Theodore II (1855-68), Johannes IV (1872-89), and
Menelik II (1889-1913), the kingdom was consolidated and began
to emerge from its medieval isolation. When Menelik II died, his
grandson, Lij Iyassu, succeeded to the throne but soon lost support
because of his Muslim ties. The Christian nobility deposed him
in 1916, and Menelik's daughter, Zewditu, was made empress. Her
cousin, Ras Tafari Makonnen (1892-1975), was made regent and successor
to the throne. In 1930, after the empress died, the regent, adopting
the throne name Haile Selassie, was crowned emperor. His reign
was interrupted in 1936 when Italian Fascist forces invaded and
occupied Ethiopia. The emperor was forced into exile in England
despite his plea to the League of Nations for intervention. Five
years later, British and Ethiopian forces defeated the Italians,
and the emperor returned to the throne.
After
a period of civil unrest, which began in February 1974, the aging
Haile Selassie I was deposed on September 12, 1974, and a provisional
administrative council of soldiers, known as the Derg ("committee")
seized power from the emperor and installed a government, which
was socialist in name and military in style. The Derg summarily
executed 59 members of the royal family and ministers and generals
of the emperor's government; Emperor Haile Selassie was strangled
in the basement of his palace on August 22, 1975.
Lt. Col.
Mengistu Haile Mariam assumed power as head of state and Derg
chairman, after having his two predecessors killed. Mengistu's
years in office were marked by a totalitarian-style government
and the country's massive militarization, financed by the Soviet
Union and the Eastern Bloc, and assisted by Cuba. From 1977 through
early 1978 thousands of suspected enemies of the Derg were tortured
and/or killed in a purge called the "red terror." Communism
was officially adopted during the late 1970s and early 1980s with
the promulgation of a Soviet-style constitution, Politburo, and
the creation of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE).
In December
1976, an Ethiopian delegation in Moscow signed a military assistance
agreement with the Soviet Union. The following April, Ethiopia
abrogated its military assistance agreement with the United States
and expelled the American military missions. In July 1977, sensing
the disarray in Ethiopia, Somalia attacked across the Ogaden Desert
in pursuit of its irredentist claims to the ethnic Somali areas
of Ethiopia. Ethiopian forces were driven back deep inside their
own frontier but, with the assistance of a massive Soviet airlift
of arms and Cuban combat forces, they stemmed the attack. The
major Somali regular units were forced out of the Ogaden in March
1978. Twenty years later, development in the Somali region of
Ethiopia lagged.
The Derg's
collapse was hastened by droughts and famine, as well as by insurrections,
particularly in the northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea. In
1989, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) merged with
other ethnically based opposition movements to form the Ethiopian
Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). In May 1991,
EPRDF forces advanced on Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled the country
for asylum in Zimbabwe, where he still resides.
In July
1991, the EPRDF, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and others
established the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) which
was comprised of an 87-member Council of Representatives and guided
by a national charter that functioned as a transitional constitution.
In June 1992 the OLF withdrew from the government; in March 1993,
members of the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic Coalition
left the government.
In May
1991, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), led by Isaias
Afwerki, assumed control of Eritrea and established a provisional
government. This provisional government independently administered
Eritrea until April 23-25, 1993, when Eritreans voted overwhelmingly
for independence in a UN-monitored free and fair referendum. Eritrea
was with Ethiopia’s consent declared independent on April
27, and the United States recognized its independence on April
28, 1993.
In Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi and members of the TGE pledged to oversee the formation of a multi-party democracy. The election for a 547-member constituent assembly was held in June 1994, and this assembly adopted the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in December 1994. The elections for Ethiopia's first popularly chosen national parliament and regional legislatures were held in May and June 1995. Most opposition parties chose to boycott these elections, ensuring a landslide victory for the EPRDF. International and non-governmental observers concluded that opposition parties would have been able to participate had they chosen to do so. The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was installed in August 1995.
In May 1998, Eritrean forces attacked part of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border region, seizing some Ethiopian-controlled territory. The strike spurred a two-year war between the neighboring states that cost over 100,000 lives. Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders signed an Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities on June 18, 2000 and a peace agreement, known as the Algiers Agreement, on December 12, 2000. The agreements called for an end to the hostilities, a 25-kilometer-wide Temporary Security Zone along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force to monitor compliance, and the establishment of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) to act as a neutral body to assess colonial treaties and applicable international law in order to render final and binding border delimitation and demarcation determinations. The United Nations Mission to Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) was established in September 2000. The EEBC presented its border delimitation decision on April 13, 2002. To date, neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea has taken the steps necessary to demarcate the border.
Opposition candidates won 12 seats in national parliamentary elections in 2000.
The next national elections were held in May 2005. Ethiopia held the most free
and fair national campaign period in the country’s history prior to May 15, 2005 elections. Unfortunately, electoral irregularities and tense campaign rhetoric resulted in a protracted election complaints review process. Public protests turned violent in June 2005. The National Electoral Board released final results in September 2005, with the opposition taking over 170 of the 547 parliamentary seats and 137 of the 138 seats for the Addis Ababa municipal council. Opposition parties called for a boycott of parliament and civil disobedience to protest the election results. In early November 2005, Ethiopian security forces responded to public protests by arresting scores of opposition leaders, as well as journalists and human rights advocates, and detaining tens of thousands of civilians in rural detention camps for up to three months. In December 2005, the government charged 131 opposition, media, and civil society leaders with capital offenses including "outrages against the constitution." Key opposition leaders and almost all of the 131 were pardoned and released from prison in the summer of 2007. As of March 2008, approximately 150 of the elected opposition members of parliament had taken their seats. Ruling and opposition parties have engaged in little dialogue since the opposition leaders were freed. Government harassment made it very difficult for opposition candidates to compete in local elections in April 2008. As a result, the ruling party won more than 99% of the local seats throughout Ethiopia.
In June 2008, former CUD vice-chairman Birtukan Mideksa was elected the party chairman of the new Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party at its inaugural session in Addis Ababa. In October 2008 the Ethiopian Government initiated a crackdown on Oromo politicians, arresting over 100 of them and accusing some of being members of the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). At the end of December 2008, after detaining Birtukan several times briefly during the month, the government re-arrested her, saying that she had violated the conditions of her pardon (she was one of the prominent opposition leaders pardoned by the government in the summer of 2007). Her original sentence of life imprisonment was reinstated.
In April 2009 the Ethiopian Government arrested 40 individuals, mostly Amhara military or ex-military members, whom they claimed were secretly members of a new opposition party, Ginbot 7, which had adopted a platform sanctioning any means, including violence, to confront the Government of Ethiopia. This party was founded in May 2008 in the United States by Berhanu Nega, one of the opposition leaders in the 2005 elections. Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in May 2010. As of June 2009, however, leading opposition politicians voiced skepticism that the Ethiopian Government would permit free and fair elections.
Prime Minister Meles announced in December 2008 that the 3,000-4,000 Ethiopian forces in Somalia would be withdrawn by the end of the year. He stated that the Ethiopian army had accomplished its mission of routing the Islamic extremists. Troops would remain near the Somali border, where they would be prepared to immediately intervene again should the extremists regroup and again threaten Ethiopia. By the end of January 2009, the Ethiopian army had fully withdrawn from Somalia.
