Ethiopian Civil War

The Ethiopian civil war, between the Ethiopian government and nationalists from Eritrea (an Ethiopian province along the Red Sea), has raged off and on and has been tightly interconnected with Ethiopia's internal political problems and conflict with neighboring Somalia. In the 1880s Italy captured Eritrea. By 1952 Ethiopia regained control, but eight years later, in 1961, Eritrean nationalists demanded independence from Ethiopia. When the Ethiopian government rejected this demand, civil war erupted.

The civil war was a symptom of profound changes within Ethiopia, involving a confrontation between traditional and modern forces that changed the nature of the Ethiopian state. The last fourteen years of Haile Selassie's reign (1960 - 1974) witnessed growing opposition to his regime. Ethiopians demanded better living conditions for the poor and an end to government corruption. In 1972 and 1973, severe drought led to famine in the northeastern part of Ethiopia. Haile Selassie's critics claimed that the government ignored victims of the famine. In 1974 Ethiopian military leaders under Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam seized the government and removed Haile Selassie from power.

The Ogaden region of southeastern Ethiopia also became a trouble spot, beginning in the 1960s. The government of neighboring Somalia claimed the region, which the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik had conquered in the 1890s. Many Somali people had always lived there, and they revolted against Ethiopian rule. In the 1970s fighting broke out between Ethiopia and Somalia over the Ogaden region.

Until then, Ethiopia had enjoyed U.S. support, while the Soviet Union had sided with its rival, Somalia. In fact, in the space of just four years (1974 - 1978), the USSR concluded a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Somalia, Ethiopia experienced a revolution in 1974, and the Soviet Union dramatically shifted massive support from Somalia to Ethiopia and then played a key part in the military defeat of its former ally in the Ogaden conflict of 1977 - 1978. During the conflict, about fifty Soviet ships passed through the Suez Canal to the port of Assab to unload fighter aircraft, tanks, artillery, and munitions - an estimated 60,000 tons of hardware - for delivery to Mengistu's regime.

After the 1974 revolution, the new military government under Mengistu adopted socialist policies and established close relations with the Soviet Union. The government began large-scale land reform, breaking up huge estates of the former nobility. The government claimed ownership of this land and turned it into farmland. But the military leaders also killed many of their Ethiopian opponents, further alienating former U.S. supporters who opposed the human rights abuses.

Eritrean rebels stepped up their separatist efforts after the 1974 revolution. Mengistu's regime invaded rebel-held Eritrea several times, but failed to regain control. Ethiopia's conflict with Eritrea also had a strong East-West dimension. The Soviet Union, along with some Arab states, advocated complete independence for Eritrea. In a speech to the United Nations, the Soviet delegate rejected the federalist compromise solution advocated by the United States, claiming that the Eritrean people had not given their consent. Soviet scholars also backed Ethiopia's claim to Eritrea on both historical and economic grounds. They noted that the Soviet Union had favored Ethiopian access to the Eritrean port of Assab as early as 1946. Despite an influx of Soviet military aid after 1977, Mengistu's counterinsurgency effort in Eritrea progressed slowly. Talks between the two sides continued well into the 1980s. The war ended in 1991 with Eritrea's independence; however, conflict between the two countries persisted for more than a decade. In June 2000, the two countries signed a cessation of hostilities agreement, and a United Nations peacekeeping force of more than 4,300 military personnel was dispatched later that year.

Bibliography

Albright, David E. (1980). Communism in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Feuchtwanger, E. J., and Nailor, Peter. (1981). The Soviet Union and the Third World. New York: St. Martin's-Press.

Human Rights Watch Organization. (2003). Eritrea and Ethiopia: The Horn of Africa War: Mass Expulsions and the Nationality Issue, June 1998 - April 2002. New York: Human Rights Watch.

Korn, David A. (1986). Ethiopia, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

—JOHANNA GRANVILLE

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Ethiopian Civil War
Disabled T-62 tank in Addis Ababa, 1991
Date 1974-1991 Location Ethiopia Result Fall of the Derg, installation of TPLF-led transitional government, to become EPRDF government
Belligerents
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement Tigray People's Liberation Front Eritrean People's Liberation Front Oromo Liberation Front Western Somali Liberation Front Eritrean Liberation Front Afar Liberation Front Ethiopian Democratic Union; Ogaden National Liberation Front[1] (not allied)	Government of Ethiopia Cuba (1987-1991)
Commanders
many	Mengistu Haile Mariam
Casualties and losses
250,000 deaths

v • d • e Recent conflicts in the Horn of Africa Eritrean War of Independence – Eritrean Civil War – Ethiopian Civil War – Ogaden War – 1982 Border War – Somali Civil War – Djiboutian Civil War – Insurgency in Ogaden – Hanish Islands conflict – Eritrean-Ethiopian War – OEF Horn of Africa – Ethiopian war in Somalia

The Ethiopian Civil War began on September 12, 1974 when the Marxist Derg staged a coup d'état against Emperor Haile Selassie, and lasted until the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government in 1991.^[2]

The war overlapped other Cold War conflicts in Africa, such as the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002).

Contents 1 History 1.1 1970s 1.2 1980s 1.3 1990s 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

History

1970s

The revolutionaries abolished the monarchy in March 1975 and Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen settled permanently in London, United Kingdom where several other members of the Imperial family were already based. The other members of the Imperial family who were still in Ethiopia at the time of the revolution were imprisoned, including Amha Selassie's father the Emperor, his daughter by his first marriage, Princess Ijigayehu, his sister Princess Tenagnework and many of his nephews, nieces, relatives and in-laws. In 1975, first his father Emperor Haile Selassie then in 1977, his daughter Princess Ijigayehu died in detention. Members of the Imperial family would remain imprisoned until 1988 (for the women) and 1989 (for the men).

The Derg eliminated its political opponents between 1975 and 1977 in response to the declaration and instigation of an Ethiopian White terror against the Derg by various opposition groups, primarily the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party which like the Derg was Marxist. Brutal tactics were used by both sides, including executions, assassinations, torture and the imprisonment of tens of thousands without trial, most of whom were innocent. The Ethiopian Red/White terror was the "urban guerrilla" chapter of the brutal war the government fought with guerrillas fighting for Eritrean independence for its entire period in power, as well as with other rebel groups ranging from the conservative and pro-monarchy Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) to the far leftist Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP).

At the same time, the Derg faced an invasion from Somalia in 1977, which sought to annex the eastern parts of Ethiopia, which were predominantly inhabited by Somalis. The Ethiopian army was able to defeat the Somali army, supported by the Western Somali Liberation Front, only with massive military assistance from the Soviet Union and Cuba. Ethiopia under the Derg became the Socialist bloc's closest ally in Africa, and became one of the best-armed nations of the region as a result of massive military aid chiefly from the Soviet Union, GDR, Cuba and North Korea. Most industries and private urban real-estate holdings were nationalized by the Derg in 1975.

During the same period, the Derg fulfilled its main slogan of "Land to the Tiller" by redistributing land once belonging to landlords to the peasant tilling the land. Mismanagement, corruption, and general hostility to the Derg's violent rule was coupled with the draining effects of constant warfare with the separatist guerilla movements in Eritrea and Tigray resulting in a drastic fall in general productivity of food and cash crops. Although Ethiopia is prone to chronic droughts, no one was prepared for the scale of drought and famine that struck the country in the mid-1980s, in which up to seven million may have died. Hundreds of thousands fled economic misery, conscription, and political repression, and went to live in neighboring countries and all over the Western world, creating an Ethiopian diaspora for the first time.

1980s

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The Derg continued its attempts to end the rebellions with military force. They initiated several campaigns against both internal rebels and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, the most important ones being Operation Shiraro, Operation Lash, Operation Red Star, and Operation Adwa which led to its decisive defeat in the Battle of Shire 15-19 February 1989.

1990s

The Mengistu government was finally toppled by his own officials and a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), in 1991 after their bid for a push on the capital Addis Ababa became successful. There was some fear that Mengistu would fight to the bitter end for the capital, but after diplomatic intervention by the United States, Mengistu fled to asylum in Zimbabwe, where he still resides to this day.^[3] The EPRDF immediately disbanded the WPE and arrested almost all of the prominent Derg officials shortly after. In December 2006, 72 officials of the Derg were found guilty of genocide. Thirty-four people were in court, 14 others have died during the lengthy process and 25, including Mengistu, were tried in absentia.

See also

• Eritrean War of Independence
• Red Terror (Ethiopia)

References

1. ^ Ethiopia: Crackdown in East Punishes Civilians (Human Rights Watch, 4-7-2007)
2. ^ A. Valentino, Benjamin. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, 2004. Page 196.
3. ^ "Ethiopia: Uncle Sam Steps In", Time 27 May 1991. (accessed 14 May 2009)

External links

• Ethiopian Civil War information page at onwar.com

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