Ethiopia
Introduction
Amharic Ītyop'iya,
Ethiopia, flag oflandlocked country on the Horn of Africa. It shares frontiers with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, and The Sudan to the west and northwest. Its total area is 437,794 square miles (1,133,882 square kilometres). Lying completely within the tropical latitudes, the country is relatively compact, with similar north-south and east-west dimensions. The capital is Addis Ababa (“New Flower”), located almost at the centre of the country.
Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world. Its territorial extent has varied over the millennia of its existence. In ancient times (Aksum) it remained centred around Aksum, an imperial capital located in the northern part of the modern state, about 100 miles (160 kilometres) from the Red Sea coast. The present territory was consolidated during the 19th and 20th centuries as European powers encroached into Ethiopia's historical domain. Ethiopia became prominent in modern world affairs first in 1896, when it defeated colonial Italy in the Battle of Adwa, and again in 1935–36, when it was invaded and occupied by fascist Italy. Liberation during World War II by the Allied powers set the stage for Ethiopia to play a more prominent role in world affairs. Ethiopia was among the first independent nations to sign the Charter of the United Nations, and it gave moral and material support to the decolonization of Africa and to the growth of Pan-African cooperation. These efforts culminated in the establishment of the Organization of African Unity (African Union) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, both of which have their headquarters in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia's prominence in Africa and elsewhere faded during the 17-year (1974–91) rule of the Derg, a Marxist regime that brought the country to the verge of disaster with civil wars aggravated by famine and starvation. With yet another provisional government at the helm, its political future and economic prospects remain uncertain.
The land
Geology
Ethiopia's (Ethiopia) topography, one of the most rugged in Africa, is built on four geologic formations. Rocks of Precambrian origin (more than 540 million years in age) form the oldest basal complex of Ethiopia, as they do in most of Africa. The Precambrian layer is buried under more recent geologic formations—except in parts of northern, western, and southern Ethiopia, where there are exposed rock layers of granite and schist. Geologic processes of the Mesozoic Era (245 to 66.4 million years ago) contributed sedimentary layers of limestone and sandstone, most of which have been either eroded or covered by volcanic rocks. Younger sedimentary layers are found in northern Ethiopia and on the floors of the Rift Valley (East African Rift System). Lava flows from the Tertiary and Quaternary periods (from 66.4 million years ago to the present) have formed basaltic layers that now cover two-thirds of Ethiopia's land surface with a thickness ranging from about 1,000 feet (300 metres) to almost 10,000 feet. The Rift Valley forms a spectacular graben (a massive tectonic trough) running right down the middle of the country from the northern frontier with Eritrea to the southern border with Kenya.
Relief
Although Ethiopia's complex relief defies easy classification, five topographic features are discernible. These are the Western Highlands, Western Lowlands, Eastern Highlands, Eastern Lowlands, and Rift Valley. The Western Highlands are the most extensive and rugged topographic component of Ethiopia. The most spectacular portion is the North Central massifs; these form the roof of Ethiopia, with elevations ranging from 15,157 feet (4,620 metres) for Mount Ras Dejen (or Dashen), the highest mountain in Ethiopia, to the Blue Nile and Tekeze river channels 10,000 feet below.
The Western Lowlands stretch north-south along the Sudanese border and include the lower valleys of the Blue Nile, Tekeze, and Baro rivers. With elevations of about 3,300 feet, these lowlands become too hot to attract dense settlement.
The Rift Valley is part of the larger East African Rift System. Hemmed in by the escarpments of the Western and Eastern Highlands, it has two distinct sections. The first part is in the northeast, where the valley floor widens into a funnel shape as it approaches the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. This is a relatively flat area interrupted only by occasional volcanic cones, some of which are active. The Denakil Plain, in which a depression known as the Kobar Sink drops as low as 380 feet below sea level, is found here. High temperatures and lack of moisture make the northeastern Rift Valley unattractive for settlement. The southwest section, on the other hand, is a narrow depression of much higher elevation. It contains Ethiopia's Lakes Region, an internal drainage basin of many small rivers that drain into Lakes Abaya, Abiyata, Awasa, Langano, Shala, Chamo, and Ziway. Together these lakes have more than 1,200 square miles (3,108 square kilometres) of water surface. The upper Rift Valley is one of the most productive and most settled parts of Ethiopia.
The Eastern Highlands are much smaller in extent than the Western Highlands, but they offer equally impressive contrast in topography. The highest peaks are Mount Batu, at 14,127 feet, and Mount Chilalo, at 13,575 feet. The Eastern Lowlands resemble the long train of a bridal gown suddenly dipping from the narrow band of the Eastern Highlands and gently rolling for hundreds of miles to the Somalian border. Two important regions here are the Ogaden and the Hawd. The Shebele and Genale rivers cross the lowlands, moderating the desert ecology.
Drainage
Ethiopia has three principal drainage systems. The first and largest is the western system, which includes the watersheds of the Blue Nile (Blue Nile River) (known as the Abay in Ethiopia), the Tekeze, and the Baro rivers. All three rivers flow west to the White Nile in The Sudan. The second system is the Rift Valley internal drainage system, composed of the Awash River, the Lakes Region, and the Omo River. The Awash flows northeast to the Denakil Plain before it dissipates into a series of swamps and Lake Abe at the border with Djibouti. The Lakes Region is a self-contained drainage basin, and the Omo flows south into Lake Rudolf, on the border with Kenya. The third system is that of the Shebele (Shebeli River) and Genale rivers (Jubba River). Both of these rivers originate in the Eastern Highlands and flow southeast toward Somalia and the Indian Ocean. Only the Genale (known as the Jubba in Somalia) makes it to the sea; the Shebele (in Somali, Shabeelle) disappears in sand just inside the coastline.
Soils
The soils of Ethiopia can be classified into five principal types. The first type is composed of euritic nitosols and andosols and is found on portions of the Western and Eastern Highlands. These soils are formed from volcanic material and, with proper management, have medium to high potential for rain-fed agriculture. The second group of soils, eutric cambisols and ferric and orthic luvisols, are found in the Simen plateau of the Western Highlands. They are highly weathered with a subsurface accumulation of clay and are characterized by low nutrient retention, surface crusting, and erosion hazards. With proper management, they are of medium agricultural potential.
The third group of soils is the dark clay soils found in the Western Lowlands and at the foothills of the Western Highlands. Composed of vertisols, they have medium to high potential for both food and agriculture but pose tillage problems because they harden when dry and become sticky when wet. Some of the rich coffee-growing regions of Ethiopia are found on these soils.
The fourth group is composed of yermosols, xerosols, and other saline soils that cover desert areas of the Eastern Lowlands and the Denakil Plain. Because of moisture deficiency and coarse texture, they lack potential for rain-fed agriculture. However, the wetter margins are excellent for livestock, and even the drier margins respond well to irrigation. The fifth soil group is lithosols found primarily in the Denakil Plain. Lack of moisture and shallow profile preclude cultivation of these soils.
Soil erosion is a serious problem in Ethiopia. Particularly in the northern provinces, which have been settled with sedentary agriculture for millennia, population density has caused major damage to the soil's physical base, to its organic and chemical nutrients, and to the natural vegetation cover. Even on the cool plateaus, where good volcanic soils are found in abundance, crude means of cultivation have exposed the soils to heavy seasonal rain, causing extensive gully and sheet erosion.
Climate
Because Ethiopia is located in the tropical latitudes, its areas of lower elevation experience climatic conditions typical of tropical savanna or desert. However, relief plays a significant role in moderating temperature, so that higher elevations experience weather typical of temperate zones. Thus, average annual temperatures in the highlands are about 61° F (16° C), while the lowlands average about 82° F (28° C).
There are three seasons in Ethiopia. From September to February is the long dry season known as the bega; this is followed by a short rainy season, the belg, in March and April. May is a hot and dry month preceding the long rainy season (kremt) in June, July, and August. The coldest temperatures generally occur in December or January (bega) and the hottest in March, April, or May (belg). However, in many localities July has the coldest temperatures because of the moderating influence of rainfall.
Ethiopia can be divided into four rainfall regimes. Rain falls year-round in the southern portions of the Western Highlands, where annual precipitation may reach 80 inches (2,000 millimetres). Summer rainfall is received by the Eastern Highlands and by the northern portion of the Western Highlands; annual precipitation there may amount to 55 inches. The Eastern Lowlands get rain twice a year, in April–May and October–November, with two dry periods in between. Total annual precipitation varies between 20 and 40 inches. The driest of all regions is the Denakil Plain, which receives less than 20 inches and sometimes none at all.
Plant and animal life
Ethiopia's natural vegetation is influenced by four biomes. The first is savanna, which, in wetter portions of the Western Highlands, consists of montane tropical vegetation with dense, luxuriant forests and rich undergrowth. Drier sections of savanna found at lower elevations of the Western and Eastern Highlands contain tropical dry forests mixed with grassland. The second biome is mountain vegetation; comprising montane and temperate grasslands, this covers the higher altitudes of the Western and Eastern Highlands. The third biome, tropical thickets and wooded steppe, is found in the Rift Valley and Eastern Lowlands. The fourth biome is desert steppe vegetation, which covers portions of the Denakil Plain.
Ethiopia has had a rich variety of wildlife that in some cases has been reduced to a few endangered remnants. Lions, leopards, elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, and wild buffalo are rarities, especially in northern Ethiopia. The Rift Valley, the Omo River valley, and the Western Lowlands contain remnants of big-game varieties. Smaller game varieties such as foxes, jackals, wild dogs, and hyenas are found abundantly throughout the country.
Uniquely Ethiopian and among the most endangered species are the walia ibex of the Simen Mountains, the mountain nyala (a kind of antelope), the Simien jackal, and the gelada monkey. They are found in the Western and Eastern Highlands in numbers ranging from a few hundred for the walia ibex to a few thousand for the others. More abundant varieties found in the lowlands include such antelopes as the oryx, greater kudu, and waterbuck, various types of monkeys including the black-and-white colobus (known as guereza in Ethiopia and hunted for its beautiful long-haired pelt), and varieties of wild pig. In order to protect remaining species, the government has set aside 20 national parks, game reserves, and sanctuaries covering a total area of 21,320 square miles—about 5 percent of the total area of Ethiopia.
Settlement patterns
With only about 12 percent of the population urbanized, most Ethiopians live in scattered rural communities. In order to reduce traveling distance, homesteads are generally scattered to be near farm plots. Buildings vary between circular and rectangular styles and are constructed of materials readily found within the environment. Roofs are mostly thatched, although some well-to-do farmers opt for corrugated steel tops.
Modern urban centres in Ethiopia include the national capital of Addis Ababa and such regional centres as Dire Dawa (in the east), Jima (south), Nekemte (west), Dese (north-central), Gonder (northwest), and Mekele (north). Addis Ababa, founded by Menilek II in 1886, brought an end to the custom of “roving capitals” practiced by earlier monarchs. After World War II, “Addis” obtained the lion's share of investments in industry, social services, and infrastructure, so that it became the most attractive place for young people to seek opportunity.
The people (Ethiopia)
Ethiopians are ethnically diverse, but it is not helpful to attempt to distinguish among peoples by physical criteria alone. The most important differences are cultural, particularly in language and religion.
Languages
Ethiopia is a mosaic of about 100 languages that can be classified into four groups—Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilotic. The Semitic languages are spoken primarily in the northern and central parts of the country; they include Geʿez (Geʿez language), Tigrinya (Tigrinya language), Amharic (Amharic language), Gurage, and Hareri. Geʿez, the ancient language of the Aksumite empire, is used today only for religious writings and worship in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. Tigrinya is native to the northern province of Tigray. Amharic is one of the country's principal languages and is native to the central and northwestern provinces. Gurage and Hareri are spoken by relatively few people in the south and east.
The most important Cushitic languages are Oromo, Somali, and Afar. Oromo, together with Amharic, is one of the two most-spoken languages in Ethiopia; it is native to the western, southwestern, southern, and eastern areas of the country. Somali is dominant among inhabitants of the Ogaden and Hawd, while Afar is most common in the Denakil Plain.
The Omotic languages, chief among which is Walaita, are not widespread, being spoken mostly in the densely populated areas of the extreme southwest. The Nilotic (Nilotic languages) language group is native to the Western Lowlands, with Kunama (Kunama languages) speakers being dominant.
Religion
Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia in the 4th century, and the Ethiopian Orthodox church (called Tewahdo in Ethiopia) is one of the oldest Christian sects in the world. The church has long enjoyed a dominant role in the culture and politics of Ethiopia, counting more than half of all Ethiopians (including most of the Amhara and Tigray) among its adherents and having served as the official religion of the ruling elite until the demise of the monarchy in 1974. It also has served as the repository of Ethiopia's literary tradition and its visual arts. The core area of Christianity is in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, but its influence is felt in the entire country.
Islām was introduced in the 7th century and is now practiced by more than one-quarter of Ethiopians. It is most important in the outlying regions, particularly in the Eastern Lowlands, but there are local concentrations throughout the country. Traditionally, the status of Islām (Islāmic world) has been far from equal with that of Christianity. However, the emperor Haile Selassie gave audiences to Muslim leaders and made overtures in response to their concerns, and under the Derg even more was done to give at least symbolic parity to the two faiths. Nevertheless, the perception of Ethiopia as “an island of Christianity in a sea of Islām” has continued to prevail among both highland Ethiopians and foreigners. There are now some concerns among highlanders that fundamentalist Muslim movements in the region and in neighbouring countries may galvanize sentiments for a greater role of Islām in Ethiopia.
About one-tenth of Ethiopians are animists (animism) who worship a variety of African deities. They are primarily located in the Western Lowlands and speak a variety of Nilotic languages, such as Kunama.
Judaism (Jew) has long been practiced in the vicinity of the ancient city of Gonder. Most of the Ethiopian Jews—who call themselves Beta Israel but also have been known as Falasha—have relocated to Israel (see Researcher's Note).
The economy
Under Emperor Haile Selassie (reigned 1930–74), Ethiopia's economy enjoyed a modicum of free enterprise. The production and export of cash crops such as coffee were advanced, and import-substituting manufactures such as textiles and footwear were established. Especially after World War II, tourism, banking, insurance, and transport began to contribute more to the national economy. The Derg regime, which ruled from 1974 to 1991, nationalized (nationalization) all means of production, including land, housing, farms, and industry. Faced with uncertainties on their land rights, the smallholding subsistence farmers who form the backbone of Ethiopian agriculture became reluctant to risk producing surplus foods for market. Food shortages, already made serious by drought and civil war, worsened, and famine continued until the Derg finally collapsed. Under the present regime, which is essentially extracted from a rebel faction, land is still state-owned and is tenurable only by leasing from the government. In addition, an uncertain political climate has precluded significant internal or external investment in the country's economy. Ethiopia therefore remains among the poorest countries in the world.
Resources
Ethiopia's most promising resource is its agricultural land. Although soil erosion, overgrazing, and deforestation have seriously damaged the plateaus, nearly half the potentially cultivable land is still available for future use. Most of the reserve land is located in parts of the country that have favourable climatic conditions for intensive agriculture. In addition, Ethiopia is the richest country in Africa in number of livestock, including cattle. With better management of grazing lands and breeding, livestock raising has the potential to meet the demands of internal as well as export markets.
Ethiopia has many large rivers, but, with the exception of the Awash, they have yet to be exploited fully for hydroelectric power and irrigation. The role of minerals in Ethiopia's economy is also small. Only gold and platinum are of significance. However, there are potentials for copper, potash, lead, manganese, aluminum, chromium, cobalt, sulfur, and many others.
Agriculture
Agriculture contributes almost half of Ethiopia's gross domestic product (GDP). There are three types of agricultural activity. The first (and by far the most important) is the subsistence smallholder sector, which produces most of the staple grains such as teff, wheat, barley, and oats (on the cooler plateaus) and sorghum, corn (maize), and millet (in warmer areas) and pulses such as chickpeas, peas, beans, and lentils. Farm plots are very small, ranging from 3 to 6 acres (1.2 to 2.5 hectares).
The second type of agriculture is cash-cropping. Products include coffee, oilseeds, beeswax, qat (a stimulant leaf), and sugarcane. Coffee, which is native to Ethiopia, is the single most important export.
Subsistence livestock raising, the third agricultural activity, is important in the peripheral lowlands of Ethiopia. Large herds may be kept by a family as it migrates each season in search of grazing and water.
Fishing
Fish is not a major item in the diet of highland Ethiopians (except during Lent for Christians). Favourite species are harvested from freshwater lakes and rivers in the highlands and the Rift Valley. Most of the fish sold locally is produced by small operators whose scale of operation and technology is inadequate for export production.
Mining and quarrying
Compared to its potential, this sector contributes very little to the country's economy (less than 1 percent of its GDP). Gold is mined at Kibre Mengist in the south and platinum at Yubdo in the west. Also important are rock salt from the Denakil Plain and quarried building materials such as marble.
Industry
Modern manufacturing contributes only about 7 percent to the GDP of Ethiopia. Products are primarily for domestic consumption. Among the most important are processed foods and beverages, textiles, tobacco, leather and footwear, and chemical products. Cottage industry and small enterprises are more important than industrial manufacturing in offering nonfarm employment and in producing a variety of consumer goods—for example, furniture, farming and construction implements, utensils, woven fabric, rugs, leathercrafts, footwear, jewelry, pottery, and baskets. Some of these products reach the tourist market. The size of the cottage industry is not known exactly, but government estimates put it at 4 percent of GDP.
Energy
Energy is derived primarily from firewood and charcoal. Ethiopia's long dependence on these sources has contributed to the depletion of its trees and to the erosion of its soil. Hydroelectricity, the most important source of power for industries and major cities, is generated at three stations on the Awash, two on the Blue Nile or its tributaries, and one on the Shebele. However, these represent only a small fraction of Ethiopia's potential.
A refinery at the Eritrean port of Aseb supplies Ethiopian motor vehicles and trains with gasoline and diesel fuel. Ethiopia itself does not extract petroleum.
Finance
Before the Derg's nationalization of banks and insurance companies, financial institutions were among the best-run and best-managed establishments in Ethiopia. The National Bank of Ethiopia is the country's central bank and is also responsible for regulatory functions. The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is the largest commercial bank, with branches throughout the country. The Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank provides loans primarily for agricultural and livestock development; it also directs small amounts toward investment in manufacturing.
Trade
Ethiopia's exports are almost entirely agricultural. Coffee (coffee production) alone is responsible for more than 50 percent of foreign-exchange earnings; other exported products are hides and skins, oilseeds, and vegetables. Major export destinations are the United States, western Europe, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Manufactures, especially machinery and transport equipment, account for almost three-quarters of the value of imports; food products and fuels are also important. With more being spent on imports than is earned from exports, Ethiopia's balance of payments has been negative for many years.
Transport
Among the more successful developments in Ethiopia has been the road system. During the brief Italian occupation of 1935–41, highways were opened up linking Addis Ababa to the provinces, and after World War II the Imperial Highway Authority opened new feeder roads to isolated localities. Road construction and maintenance slowed during the decade of civil war in the 1980s. With the secession of Eritrea, Ethiopia no longer has direct access to the Red Sea ports of Aseb and Mitsiwa. This loss has placed greater importance on the railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, which was originally built by a French company between 1897 and 1917.
Ethiopia's air transport system has enjoyed a success unparalleled in Africa. The internal network of Ethiopian Airlines (a state-owned but independently operated carrier) is well developed, connecting major provincial capitals and locations of tourist interest. Its international network provides excellent service to Africa, Europe, and Asia. Bole International Airport, near Addis Ababa, serves other African and European airlines and is also an acknowledged centre for pilot training and aircraft maintenance.
Tourism
Although tourism was curtailed during the period of Derg rule, Ethiopia can once again realize the tourist potential of such historical wonders as the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, the antiquities at Aksum, and the Gonder castles. Of equal attraction are Ethiopia's diverse peoples, their intriguing cultures, and the natural beauty of their land.
Administration and social conditions
Government
Ethiopia's ancient system of feudal government experienced significant changes under Haile Selassie I, who carefully grafted onto the traditional governing institutions a weak parliament of appointed and elected legislators, a judiciary with modernized civil and criminal codes and a hierarchy of courts, and an executive cabinet of ministers headed by a prime minister but answerable to himself. The Derg took power in 1974 and promised to bring revolutionary change to Ethiopia. Promulgating itself as the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC) and later as the Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE), the Derg instituted a Soviet-style government with a state president and a house of deputies that were answerable to a revolutionary council with a politburo at the top. In May 1991 the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) entered the capital. The EPRDF introduced a temporary constitution called the National Charter, created an 87-member assembly known as the State Council, and proceeded to form a cabinet for the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). The TGE endorsed the secession of Eritrea, realigned provincial boundaries in an attempt to create ethnic homogenates, demobilized the national armed forces, and suspended the courts and enforcing agencies.
Education
Ethiopia maintains two educational systems. The traditional system is rooted in Christianity and Islām. Christian education at the primary level is often conducted by clergy in the vicinity of places of worship. Higher education, with emphasis on traditional Christian dogma, is still run by most major centres of worship, the most prominent being monasteries in the northern and northwestern provinces. Graduation from these centres leads to a position within the priesthood and church hierarchy.
Modern education was an innovation of the emperors Menilek II (reigned 1889–1913) and Haile Selassie I (1930–74), who established an excellent, but limited, system of primary and secondary education. In addition, colleges of liberal arts, technology, public health, building, law, social work, business, agriculture, and theology were opened in the 1950s and '60s. In 1961 Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University) was created to centralize the administration of higher education in the country. The Derg expanded primary education and gave university designation to the Agricultural College in Alemaya near Harer and to the Medical College in Gonder. Nevertheless, with only about 40 percent of the primary, 15 percent of the secondary, and 1 percent of the tertiary age groups enrolled, Ethiopia's educational system is still grossly inadequate.
Health and welfare
Ethiopia's health-care system includes primary health centres, clinics, and hospitals. Only major cities have hospitals with full-time physicians, and most of the hospitals are in Addis Ababa. With some 30,000 people per physician, access to modern health care is very limited. Fewer than 60 percent of births are attended by health staff, and infant mortality is approximately 130 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth is 47 years.
Most health facilities are government-owned. Hopes of increasing the number of Ethiopian doctors suffered during the Derg era, when many either left the country or failed to return from specialized training abroad. Two medical schools continue to produce general practitioners and a few specialists, but the scale of output does not match the rising demand. Under the Derg, health facilities deteriorated from lack of maintenance and from shortages of equipment and drugs. Widespread use of traditional healing continues to be important, including such specialized occupations as bonesetting, midwifery, and minor surgery (including circumcision).
Cultural life
The cultural heritage of Ethiopians resides in their religions, languages, and extended families. All major language and religious groups have their own cultural practices (which also vary by geographic location); however, there are commonalities that form strong and recognizable national traits. Most Ethiopians place less importance on artifacts of culture than they do on an idealized ethos of cultural refinement as reflected in a respect for human sanctity, the practice of social graces, and the blessings of accumulated wisdom. Religion provides the basic tenets of morality. The invocation of God is often all that is needed to seal agreements, deliver on promises, and seek justifiable redress. Hospitality is reckoned the ultimate expression of grace in social relations. Old age earns respect and prominence in society, especially because of the piety, wisdom, knowledge, prudence, and altruism that it is supposed to bestow.
The influence of the Ethiopian Orthodox church on the national culture has been strong. Easter (Amharic: Yetinsa-e Be-al, or Fassika), Christmas (Yelidet Be-al, or Genna), and the Finding of the True Cross (Meskel) have become dominant national holidays. In an effort to reduce the dominance of the Christian church, both the Derg and the current regime have elevated the status of Islām (Islāmic world). Major Islāmic holidays include ʿĪd al-Fiṭr (ending the fast of Ramaḍān) and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā (ending the period of pilgrimage to Mecca).
History
From prehistory to the Aksumite kingdom
That life is of great antiquity in Ethiopia is indicated by the Hadar remains, a group of skeletal fragments found in the lower Awash River valley. The bone fragments belong to Australopithecus afarensis, an apelike creature that lived about four million years ago and may have been an ancestor of modern humans.
Sometime between the 8th and 6th millennia BC, pastoralism and then agriculture developed in northern Africa and southwestern Asia, and, as the population grew, an ancient tongue spoken in this region fissured into the modern languages of the Afro-Asiatic (Afro-Asiatic languages) (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family. This family includes the Cushitic (Cushitic languages) and Semitic languages now spoken in Ethiopia. During the 2nd millennium BC, cereal grains and the use of the plow were introduced into Ethiopia from the region of the Sudan, and a people speaking Geʿez (a Semitic language) came to dominate the rich northern highlands of Tigray. There, in the 7th century BC, they established the kingdom of Daʾamat. This kingdom dominated lands to the west, obtaining ivory, tortoiseshell, rhinoceros horn, gold, silver, and slaves and trading them to South Arabian merchants.
After 300 BC, Da'amat deteriorated as trade routes were diverted eastward for easier access to coastal ports. Subsequent wars of aggrandizement led to unification under the inland state of Aksum, which, from its base on the Tigray Plateau, controlled the ivory trade into the Sudan, other trade routes leading farther inland to the south, and the port of Adulis on the Gulf of Zula. Aksum's culture comprised Geʿez (Geʿez language), written in a modified South Arabian alphabet, sculpture and architecture based on South Arabian (Arabia, history of) prototypes, and an amalgam of local and Middle Eastern dieties. Thus, evidence exists of a close cultural exchange between Aksum and the Arabian peninsula, but there are no scholarly grounds for the common belief that South Arabian immigrants actually peopled and created Aksum, even if many of them visited or even came to live there. Nevertheless, the ancient cultural exchange across the Red Sea became enshrined in Ethiopian legend in the persons of Makeda—the Queen of Sheba (Sheba, Queen of)—and the Israelite king Solomon. Their mythical union was said to have produced Menilek I, the progenitor of Ethiopia's royal dynasty.
By the 5th century Aksum was the dominant trading power in the Red Sea. Commerce rested on sound financial methods, attested to by the minting of coins bearing the effigies of Aksumite emperors. In the anonymous Greek travel book Periplus Maris Erythraei, written in the 1st century AD, Adulis is described as an “open harbour” containing a settlement of Greco-Roman merchants. It was through such communities, established for the purposes of trade, that the monophysite Christianity of the eastern Mediterranean reached Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Ezanas (c. 303–c. 350). By the mid-5th century, monks were evangelizing among the Cushitic-speaking Agew people to the east and south.
At its height, Aksum extended its influence northward to the southernmost reaches of Egypt, westward to the Cushite kingdom of Meroe, southward to the Omo River, and eastward to the spice coasts on the Gulf of Aden. Even the South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites (Ḥimyar), across the Red Sea in what is now Yemen, came under the suzerainty of Aksum. In the early 6th century, Emperor Caleb (Ella-Asbeha; reigned c. 500–534) was strong enough to reach across the Red Sea in order to protect his coreligionists in Yemen against persecution by a Jewish prince. However, Christian power in South Arabia ended after 572, when the Persians invaded and disrupted trade. They were followed 30 years later by the Arabs, whose rise in the 7th and 8th centuries cut off Aksum's trade with the Mediterranean world.
The Zagwe (Zagwe Dynasty) and Solomonid dynasties (Solomonid Dynasty)
As Christian shipping disappeared from the Red Sea, Aksum's towns lost their vitality. The Aksumite state turned southward, conquering adjacent, grain-rich highlands. Monastic establishments moved even farther to the south—for example, a great monastery was founded near Lake Hayk in the 9th century. Over time, one of the subject peoples, the Agew (Agau), learned Geʿez, became Christian, and assimilated their Aksumite oppressors to the point that Agew princes were able to transfer the seat of the empire southward to their own region of Lasta. Thus the Zagwe dynasty appeared in Ethiopia. Later ecclesiastical texts accused this dynasty of not having been of pure “Solomonid” stock (i.e., not descended from the union of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba), but it was in the religious plane that the Zagwe nonetheless distinguished themselves. At the Zagwe capital of Roha, Emperor Lalibela (reigned c. 1185–1225) directed the hewing of 11 churches out of living rock—a stupendous monument to Christianity, which he and the other Zagwes fostered along with the Ethiopianization of the countryside.
The church hierarchy, however, continued to view the Zagwes with distaste, favouring instead the Amhara princes of northern Shewa, who claimed legitimacy as the avatars of the Aksumite dynasty. When Shewa's king Yekuno Amlak rebelled in 1270, he was supported by an influential faction of monastic churchmen, who condoned his regicide of Emperor Yitbarek and legitimated his descent from Solomon. The genealogy of the new Solomonid dynasty was published in the early 14th century in the Kebra Negast (“Glory of the Kings”), a pastiche of legends that related the birth of Menilek I, associated Ethiopia with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and provided a basis for Ethiopian national unity through the Solomonid dynasty, Shewan culture, and the Amharic language. Well-armed ideologically, the Ethiopian state was prepared for a struggle impending in its eastern and southern provinces, where Christianity was being pushed back by the forces of Islām (Islāmic world).
Islāmic missionary preaching had led to the conversion of many pagan people living on the peripheries of Ethiopian rule. In the late 13th century, various Muslim sultanates on Ethiopia's southern border fell under the hegemony of Ifat, located on the eastern Shewan Plateau and in the Awash valley. Early in his reign (1314–44), the Ethiopian emperor Amda Tseyon marched southward, where he established strategic garrisons and divided jurisdictions into gults, or fiefs, whose holders paid an annual tribute. His heavy taxation of exports, especially of gold, ivory, and slaves that were transshipped from Ifat to Arabia, resulted in several rebellions led by Muslim sultans. Amda Tseyon and his successors replied with brutal pacification campaigns that carried Solomonid power into the Awash valley and even as far as Seylac (Zeila) on the Gulf of Aden.
Aggrandizement into non-Christian areas eventually stimulated an internal reform and consolidation of the Christian state. As heads of the church, Solomonid monarchs actively participated in the development of religious culture and discipline by building and beautifying churches, repressing pagan practices, and promoting the composition of theological and doctrinal works. Such close connection between church and state inevitably brought conflict. Because of the role played by the monasteries in the accession of the Solomonid dynasty, many of them had been given perpetual title to considerable landed benefices. Such power allowed the monasteries at times to intervene in disputes over succession to the Solomonid throne and even openly to fight the reigning monarch. On the other hand, the monk Abba Ewostatewos (c. 1273–1352) preached isolation from corrupting state influences and a return to Biblical teachings—including observance of the Judaic Sabbath on Saturday in addition to the Sunday observance, an idea deeply held by the rural masses. The great emperor Zara Yakob (reigned 1434–68) conceded the latter point in 1450 at the Council of Mitmak, but he also initiated severe reforms in the church, eliminating abuses by strong measures and executing the leaders of heretical sects. Zara Yakob also conducted an unsuccessful military campaign to annihilate the Beta Israel, or Falasha, a group of Agew-speaking Jews who practiced a non-Talmudic form of Judaism.
Zara Yakob valued national unity above all and feared Muslim encirclement. In 1445 he dealt Ifat such a crushing military defeat that hegemony over the Muslim states passed to the sultans of Adal, in the vicinity of Harer. About 1520 the leadership of Adal was assumed by Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī (Aḥmad Grāñ), a Muslim reformer who became known as Sahib al-Fath (“the Conqueror”) to the Muslims and Aḥmad Grāñ (“Ahmad the Left-Handed”) to the Christians. Aḥmad drilled his men in modern Ottomon tactics and led them on a jihad, or holy war, against Ethiopia, quickly taking areas on the periphery of Solomonid rule. In 1528 Emperor Lebna Denegel was defeated at the battle of Shimbra Kure, and the Muslims pushed northward into the central highlands, destroying settlements, churches, and monasteries. In 1541 the Portuguese, whose interests in the Red Sea were imperiled by Muslim power, sent 400 musketeers to train the Ethiopian army in European tactics. Emperor Galawdewos (reigned 1540–59) opted for a hit-and-run strategy and on February 21, 1543, caught Aḥmad in the open near Lake Tana and killed him in action. The Muslim army broke, leaving the field and north-central Ethiopia to the Christians.
The Age of the Princes
Meanwhile, population pressures had mounted among the Oromo, a pastoral people who inhabited the upper basin of the Genalē (Jubba) River in what is now southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Oromo society was based upon an “age-set” system known as gada, in which all males born into an eight-year generation moved together through all the stages of life. The warrior classes (luba) raided and rustled in order to prove themselves, and in the 16th century they began to undertake long-distance expeditions into the recently depopulated Ethiopian Plateau, stopping only when blocked by physical obstacles or by military might. By 1600 the Oromo had spread so widely in Ethiopia that Emperor Sarsa Dengel (reigned 1563–97) limited his government to what are now Eritrea, the northern regions of Tigray and Gonder, and parts of Gojam, Shewa, and Welo. These constituted an easily defensible, socially cohesive unit that included mostly Christian, Semitic-speaking agriculturalists. The church continued to rail against the Oromo threat and exhorted its flock to restore Ethiopia to its ancient domains, but the Monophysite faith soon found itself facing a different kind of threat from Roman Catholicism.
Following close upon the Portuguese musketeers were missionaries who, sent by the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola, sought to convert Ethiopia to the Western church. The most successful of these was the Jesuit Pedro Páez; (Páez, Pedro) his personal authority and eminent qualities were such that Emperor Susenyos (reigned 1607–32) was persuaded to accept the doctrine of the dual nature of Christ and to notify the pope of his acceptance. This apostasy attracted the elites but repulsed the masses and the monks, and Susenyos was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Fasilides (reigned 1632–67).
Fasilides established a new capital at Gonder, a trading centre north of Lake Tana that connected the interior to the coast. At its height about 1700, the city supported the arts and educational, religious, and social institutions as well as Beta Israel craftspeople, Muslim traders, and a large Oromo population of farmers, day labourers, and soldiers. In order to protect Orthodox Christendom from the pagan Oromo, who were moving into southern Tigray and southeastern Gonder province, the monarchy turned to a newly assimilated Oromo aristocracy. Eventually the emperors at Gonder became little more than local magnates protected by Oromo generals. Meanwhile, agricultural development in the Gībē River basin was leading to the formation of Oromo states just south of Shewa, the Gonga people were developing their own states in the Kefa highlands on the west bank of the Omo River, and a line that claimed Solomonid descent was returning northern Shewa to Amhara rule. By the reign of Emperor Tekle Haimanot I (1706–08), little was left of the central government. The Zamana Masafent (“Age of the Princes”), 150 years of feudal anarchy, had commenced.
For most Ethiopians, life during the Age of the Princes was difficult. Everyone had a niche in society, few moved from class to class, and practically nobody questioned the social order. As armies traversed the highlands, ruining the countryside and forcing farmers off the land and onto the field of battle, the self-sufficient rural economy of the north broke down. The balance of power shifted southward to untouched Shewa, which prospered in the growing trade of the Gībē states. Shewa's self-proclaimed king, Sahle Selassie (reigned 1813–47), and his successors expanded southward, so that by 1840 they controlled most of Shewa to the Awash River and enjoyed suzerainty as far south as Guragē.
To the north, Kassa (Tewodros II) Hailu was ending the Age of the Princes. After serving as a mercenary in Gojam, Kassa returned to his native Kwara in the western lowlands, where he prospered as a highwayman and built a good, small army. By 1847 he monopolized the lowlands' revenues from trade and smuggling, forcing Gonder's leading magnates to integrate him into the establishment. Finally, in April 1853 at Takusa, Kassa defeated Ras (Prince) Ali, the last of the Oromo lords. After consolidating his rule over Tigray to the north, Kassa was crowned Emperor Tewodros II on February 9, 1855. Later that year he marched south and forced the submission of Shewa.
Tewodros II, Yohannes IV, and Menilek II
Although Tewodros' first years were marked by attempts at social justice, his effort to establish garrisons nationwide lost the allegiance of the already heavily taxed peasantry, and he alienated parish clergy by nationalizing “excess” church land. Such political ineptitude gave heart to the regional aristocrats, who returned to conspiracy. The emperor held Ethiopia together only through coercion, and in 1861, finally understanding his conundrum, he conceived a bold foreign policy to regain popular support. In 1862 Tewodros offered Britain's Queen Victoria an alliance to destroy Islām. The British ignored the scheme, and, when no response came, Tewodros imprisoned the British envoy and other Europeans. This diplomatic incident led to an Anglo-Indian military expedition in 1868. Sir Robert Napier (Napier, Robert Napier, 1st Baron), the commander, paid money and weapons to Kassa, a dejazmatch (earl) of Tigray, in order to secure passage inland, and on April 10, on the plains below Āmba Maryam (or Mekʾdela), British troops defeated a small imperial force. In order to avoid capture, Tewodros committed suicide two days later.
The Tigrayan Kassa took the imperial crown as Yohannes IV on January 21, 1872. After ejecting two Egyptian armies from the highlands of Eritrea in 1875–76, Yohannes moved south, forcing Shewa's king Menilek (Menilek II) to submit and to renounce imperial ambitions. Yohannes thus became the first Ethiopian emperor in 300 years to wield authority from Tigray south to Guragē. He then sought to oust the Egyptians from coastal Eritrea, where they remained after the Mahdists had largely taken over the Sudan, but he was unable to prevent Italy from disembarking troops at Mitsiwa (now Massawa) in February 1885. In order to weaken the emperor, Rome tried to buy Menilek's cooperation with thousands of rifles; the Shewan king remained faithful to Yohannes but took the opportunity in January 1887 to incorporate Harer into his kingdom. Meanwhile, Yohannes repulsed Italian forays inland, and in 1889 he marched into the Sudan to avenge Mahdist attacks on Gonder. On March 9, 1889, with victory in his grasp, he was shot and killed at Metema.
Menilek declared himself emperor of Ethiopia on March 25, and at Wichale (or Ucciali, as the Italians called it) in Tigray on May 2 he signed a treaty of amity and commerce granting Italy rule over Eritrea. The Italian version of Article XVII of the Treaty of Wichale (Wichale, Treaty of) made Rome the medium for Ethiopia's foreign relations, whereas the Amharic text was noncommital. Learning that Rome had used the mistranslation to claim a protectorate over all of Ethiopia, Menilek first sought a diplomatic solution; meanwhile, during 1891–93, he sent expeditions south and east to obtain gold, ivory, musk, coffee, hides, and slaves to trade for modern weapons and munitions. In December 1895, after two years of good harvests had filled Ethiopia's granaries, Menilek moved his army into Tigray.
Rome believed that as few as 35,000 soldiers could control Ethiopia, but it was proved wrong on March 1, 1896, at the Battle of Adwa (Adwa, Battle of), where General Oreste Baratieri led 14,500 Italian troops on a poorly organized attack against Menilek's well-armed host of some 100,000 fighters. The Italian lines crumbled, and at noon retreat was sounded. The emperor retired into Ethiopia to await negotiations, and on October 26, 1896, he signed the Treaty of Addis Ababa, which abrogated the Treaty of Wichale.
Menilek subsequently directed the Solomonid state into areas never before under its rule. Between 1896 and 1906 Ethiopia expanded to its present size, taking in the highlands, the key river systems, and a buffer of low-lying arid or tropical zones around the state's central core. Revenues from the periphery were used to modernize the new capital of Addis Ababa, to open schools and hospitals, and to build communication networks. Menilek contracted with a French company to construct a railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, thus spurring the exploitation of the country's produce by foreign merchants in cooperation with the ruling elites.
The reign of Haile Selassie I
As Menilek aged, he appointed a cabinet to act for his grandson and heir designate, Iyasu, a son of the Oromo ruler of Welo. Upon the emperor's death in 1913, Iyasu took power in his own right. Seeking a society free of religious and ethnic divisions, he removed many of Menilek's governors and integrated Muslims into the administration, outraging Ethiopia's Christian ruling class. During World War I, Iyasu dallied with Islām and with the Central Powers in the hope of regaining Eritrea. After the Allies formally protested, Addis Ababa's aristocrats met, accused Iyasu of apostasy and subversion, and deposed him on September 27, 1916.
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 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 in which he was helped by Ethiopia's transition to 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.
On April 1, 1930, Zauditu died and Tafari declared himself emperor. He was crowned Haile Selassie I (“Strength 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 open the country to the world economy. By 1932 revenues were pouring into Addis Ababa from taxes applied to 25,000 tons of coffee exported each year.
Haile Selassie's success convinced Italy's ruler Benito Mussolini (Mussolini, Benito) 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 (Nations, League of). 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 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. Ignoring the British occupation authorities, he quickly organized his own government.
In February 1945 at a meeting with U.S. President 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 Allies and by the United Nations reported that Eritrea lacked national consciousness and an economy that 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, and to modernize urban centres. In November 1955 the emperor promulgated a revised constitution, which permitted 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 cooperation, economic development, and bureaucratic modernization.
Some educated 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 nation's social and economic problems were 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 Mogadishu joined the fighting, the Ethiopian army and air force smashed its enemy. Mogadishu'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. 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 of “land to the tiller,” the students sought to limit property size and rights, and, by fostering the Leninist notion that nationalities had the right to secede, they 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 tax 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 overpopulated and overfarmed 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. Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, of Harer's Third 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. In November, after a shootout among members of the Derg, as many as 60 leaders of the old regime were executed. The new government issued a Declaration of socialism on December 20, 1974.
Socialist Ethiopia
The Derg borrowed its ideology from competing Marxist (Marxism) parties, one of which, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), believed so strongly in civilian rule that it undertook urban guerrilla war against the military rulers. During the ensuing anarchy, Mengistu seized complete power as head of state. He then undertook class warfare against the EPRP, as a result of which thousands of Ethiopia's best-educated and idealistic young people were killed or exiled. At this moment of weakness, in May and June 1977, Somalia's army advanced into the Ogaden. Moscow (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) labeled Mogadishu 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, Somalia withdrew in early 1978. Mengistu quickly shifted troops to Eritrea, where, by year's end, the secessionists were pushed back into mountainous terrain around Nakʾfa.
Mengistu sought to transform Ethiopia into a command (command economy) state led by a disciplined and loyal party that would control virtually every organ of authority. To this end a land-reform (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 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 (kebellay) 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, mainly because the equitable distribution of land among the members of peasants' associations led to smaller plots, overcultivation, land degradation, and declining harvests. 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 disastrous policy that led to a horrific famine in 1984. With one-sixth of Ethiopia's people at risk of starvation, Western nations 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 refugees (refugee) 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 because of resource-draining civil strife in the north.
By 1985–86 the government was embattled throughout most of Eritrea and Tigray, but Mengistu simply stepped up recruitment and asked Moscow for more arms. In December 1987 the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) broke through the Ethiopian lines before Nakʾfa and continued to wage 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 Marxist purity of the Ethiopian revolution. 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 socialism.
The peasantry immediately abandoned the regime's 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—especially in southern Ethiopia, where the long-dormant Oromo Liberation Front 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 and on May 28 the EPRDF took power.
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 the Ethiopian union be maintained by force; rather, it would be a voluntary federation of its many peoples. To this end the EPRDF and other political groups 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 Ethiopia (thus paving the way for Eritrea's legal independence).
It soon became obvious that the new regime was weakening the central administration of Ethiopia in favour of strong, ethnically based regional governments whose ruling parties were intended to be affiliated politically and ideologically with the EPRDF. A new regional map reflecting the changes was issued in 1992. Some Ethiopians criticized the new ethnic units as similar to an antinational reorganization of Ethiopia drawn up by the Italians in 1936. The Amhara, identified by the EPRDF as colonizers, were particularly affronted by the apparent disunification of the country. The government fought back by denouncing Amhara leaders as antidemocratic chauvinists and by muzzling the press through application of a new law that theoretically guaranteed its freedom. In the provinces, the government did not bother to maintain even the guise of freedom: there, the suppression of anti-EPRDF forces, especially the Oromo Liberation Front, was so blatant as to be noticed by the members of an international team sent to observe regional elections in June 1992.
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, and made it easier for foreign companies to invest in Ethiopia and repatriate their profits. However, the government refused to denationalize (and thereby capitalize) land and to return property confiscated by the Derg. The economy therefore remained stagnant, and yet another famine, stemming from a lack of national integration and the stifling overregulation of business—especially outside Addis Ababa—was signaled early in 1994. By midyear, 10 million people were reported to be at risk, largely in the north and east. The government called upon the international donor community for help, but, by failing to free the economy and thus failing to solve its chronic famine crisis, Ethiopia remained unable to finance its own development and to create the surplus needed to relieve its own population. In addition, it remained uncertain whether Meles's regime would be able to sustain Ethiopia as a state by building a democracy based on ethnic rights. If the rights of a large nationality, such as the Oromo, were to conflict with the needs of the state, the EPRDF authorities might face the political crisis by becoming even more authoritarian and antidemocratic. Such a possibility led many observers to believe that government by ethnicity was as impracticable as government by socialism.
Additional Reading
Geography
Edward Ullendorff, The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People, 3rd ed. (1973, reprinted 1990), is a comprehensive study, beginning with the early explorers and their impressions of the country's people and culture and including discussions of such topics as geography, anthropology, history, culture, and daily life; although some of the quantitative information is dated, the book makes interesting reading. Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, An Introductory Geography of Ethiopia (1972), is an excellent introduction providing information on the physical attributes, economic activities, population characteristics, and history of the country, and his Rural Vulnerability to Famine in Ethiopia: 1958–1977 (1986), offers a valuable assessment, attempting to identify the human and natural causes of food insecurity and exploring various ways of detecting vulnerability to famine and the shortcomings of the state in alleviating the danger. Donald N. Levine, Wax & Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture (1965, reprinted 1986), offers a thorough and detailed study of the culture and ethos of the politically dominant Amhara, and his Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (1974), explores cultural parallels and connections among the many different ethnic groups of the Ethiopian “mosaic.” Daniel Teferra, Social History and Theoretical Analyses of the Economy of Ethiopia (1990), combines discussions on the historical geography of Ethiopia's people and on the current challenges in economic development. Jonathan Baker, The Rural-Urban Dichotomy in the Developing World: A Case Study from Northern Ethiopia (1986), treats in detail the urban patterns in parts of the country. Edmond J. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic (1988), deals with the political transformation of Ethiopia from its monarchist order to a people's republic. Mulatu Wubneh and Yohannis Abate, Ethiopia: Transition and Development in the Horn of Africa (1988), is an excellent survey from a variety of perspectives, with discussions of the geography and history and of the country's social, cultural, political, and economic patterns.
History
Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia (1994), is the only modern general history of Ethiopia from Australopithecus afarensis to the fall of the Derg in 1991. Particular periods or events are covered in Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 (1972), which remains the only scholarly account of the golden years of the Solomonid dynasty; Mohammed Hassen, The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History, 1570–1860 (1990), the first modern history of the Oromo; Mordechai Abir, Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes: The Challenge of Islam and the Re-unification of the Christian Empire, 1769–1855 (1968), a dated but still largely accurate synthesis of the Age of the Princes; Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1974 (1991), a scholarly and authentically Ethiopian view; Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence (1976), an account that details the internal reasons for Ethiopia's continued independence during the epoch of modern European imperialism; Christopher Clapham, Haile-Selassie's Government (1969), an analysis of Haile Selassie's highly developed monarchical and authoritarian state; and John W. Harbeson, The Ethiopian Transformation: The Quest for the Post-Imperial State (1988), a detailed account of the Mengistu years (1974–91) that argues against an Ethiopian revolution but for the notion of transformation.
- Scheer, Reinhard
- Scheffel, Joseph Victor von
- schefflera
- Scheidemann, Philipp
- Scheidt, Samuel
- Scheie's syndrome
- Schein, Johann Hermann
- Schelde River
- Scheler, Max
- Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von
- Schelling, Thomas C.
- schemochrome
- Schendel, Arthur van
- Schenectady
- Schengen Agreement
- Schenk, Ard
- Schenker, Heinrich
- Scherchen, Hermann
- Scherrer, Paul
- scherzo
- Scheveningen
- Schiaparelli, Elsa
- Schiaparelli, Giovanni Virginio
- Schickele, René
- Schiedam