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Ethiopia's transtion from Military Dictatorship to Ethnic based Dictatorhip: a brief history
Posted: 24 Nov 2019, 17:27
by EthioRedSea
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 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 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.
Re: Ethiopia's transtion from Military Dictatorship to Ethnic based Dictatorhip: a brief history
Posted: 24 Nov 2019, 17:33
by EthioRedSea
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 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 [deleted] 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 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 Crummey
SpaceNext50
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 1995
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.
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.
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.
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 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 [deleted] 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 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 Crummey
SpaceNext50
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 1995
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.
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.
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.
Re: Ethiopia's transtion from Military Dictatorship to Ethnic based Dictatorhip: a brief history
Posted: 24 Nov 2019, 17:38
by EthioRedSea
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 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.
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 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.
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.
In October 2018 Abiy formed a new cabinet, 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 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.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica