Ethiopia
Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered on the
north and northeast by Eritrea, on the east by Djibouti and Somalia,
on the south by Kenya, and on the west and southwest by Sudan. The
country has a high central plateau that varies from 1,800 to 3,000
meters (6,000 ft.-10,000 ft.) above sea level, with some mountains
reaching 4,620 meters (15,158 ft.). Elevation is generally highest
just before the point of descent to the Great Rift Valley, which
splits the plateau diagonally. A number of rivers cross the
plateau--notably the Blue Nile flowing from Lake Tana. The plateau
gradually slopes to the lowlands of the Sudan on the west and the
Somali-inhabited plains to the southeast.
The climate is temperate on the plateau and hot in the lowlands. At
Addis Ababa, which ranges from 2,200 to 2,600 meters (7,000
ft.-8,500 ft.), maximum temperature is 26o C (80o F) and minimum 4o
C (40o F). The weather is usually sunny and dry with the short (belg)
rains occurring February-April and the big (meher) rains beginning
in mid-June and ending in mid-September.
Ethiopia's population is highly diverse. Most of its people speak a
Semitic or Cushitic language. The Oromo, Amhara, and Tigreans make
up more than three-fourths of the population, but there are more
than 77 different ethnic groups with their own distinct languages
within Ethiopia. Some of these have as few as 10,000 members. In
general, most of the Christians live in the highlands, while Muslims
and adherents of traditional African religions tend to inhabit
lowland regions. English is the most widely spoken foreign language
and is taught in all secondary schools. Amharic is the official
language and was the language of primary school instruction but has
been replaced in many areas by local languages such as Oromifa and
Tigrinya. |
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Ethiopia is credited with being the origin of mankind. Bones
discovered in eastern Ethiopia date back 3.2 million years. Ethiopia
is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in
the world. Herodotus, the Greek historian of the fifth century B.C.
describes ancient Ethiopia in his writings. The Old Testament of the
Bible records the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem. According to
legend, Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba,
founded the Ethiopian Empire. Missionaries from Egypt and Syria
introduced Christianity in the fourth century A.D. Following the
rise of Islam in the seventh century, Ethiopia was gradually cut off
from European Christendom. The Portuguese established contact with
Ethiopia in 1493, primarily to strengthen their influence over the
Indian Ocean and to convert Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism. There
followed a century of conflict between pro- and anti-Catholic
factions, resulting in the expulsion of all foreign missionaries in
the 1630s. This period of bitter religious conflict contributed to
hostility toward foreign Christians and Europeans, which persisted
into the 20th century and was a factor in Ethiopia's isolation until
the mid-19th century.
Under the Emperors Theodore II (1855-68), Johannes IV (1872-89), and
Menelik II (1889-1913), the kingdom was consolidated and began to
emerge from its medieval isolation. When Menelik II died, his
grandson, Lij Iyassu, succeeded to the throne but soon lost support
because of his Muslim ties. The Christian nobility deposed him in
1916, and Menelik's daughter, Zewditu, was made empress. Her cousin,
Ras Tafari Makonnen (1892-1975), was made regent and successor to
the throne. In 1930, after the empress died, the regent, adopting
the throne name Haile Selassie, was crowned emperor. His reign was
interrupted in 1936 when Italian Fascist forces invaded and occupied
Ethiopia. The emperor was forced into exile in England despite his
plea to the League of Nations for intervention. Five years later,
British and Ethiopian forces defeated the Italians, and the emperor
returned to the throne.
After a period of civil unrest, which began in February 1974, the
aging Haile Selassie I was deposed on September 12, 1974, and a
provisional administrative council of soldiers, known as the Derg
("committee") seized power from the emperor and installed a
government, which was socialist in name and military in style. The
Derg summarily executed 59 members of the royal family and ministers
and generals of the emperor's government; Emperor Haile Selassie was
strangled in the basement of his palace on August 22, 1975.
Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam assumed power as head of state and
Derg chairman, after having his two predecessors killed. Mengistu's
years in office were marked by a totalitarian-style government and
the country's massive militarization, financed by the Soviet Union
and the Eastern Bloc, and assisted by Cuba. From 1977 through early
1978 thousands of suspected enemies of the Derg were tortured and/or
killed in a purge called the "red terror." Communism was officially
adopted during the late 1970s and early 1980s with the promulgation
of a Soviet-style constitution, Politburo, and the creation of the
Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE).
In December 1976, an Ethiopian delegation in Moscow signed a
military assistance agreement with the Soviet Union. The following
April, Ethiopia abrogated its military assistance agreement with the
United States and expelled the American military missions. In July
1977, sensing the disarray in Ethiopia, Somalia attacked across the
Ogaden Desert in pursuit of its irredentist claims to the ethnic
Somali areas of Ethiopia. Ethiopian forces were driven back deep
inside their own frontier but, with the assistance of a massive
Soviet airlift of arms and Cuban combat forces, they stemmed the
attack. The major Somali regular units were forced out of the Ogaden
in March 1978. Twenty years later, development in the Somali region
of Ethiopia lagged.
The Derg's collapse was hastened by droughts and famine, as well as
by insurrections, particularly in the northern regions of Tigray and
Eritrea. In 1989, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF)
merged with other ethnically based opposition movements to form the
Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). In May
1991, EPRDF forces advanced on Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled the
country for asylum in Zimbabwe, where he still resides.
In July 1991, the EPRDF, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and
others established the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE)
which was comprised of an 87-member Council of Representatives and
guided by a national charter that functioned as a transitional
constitution. In June 1992 the OLF withdrew from the government; in
March 1993, members of the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic
Coalition left the government.
In May 1991, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), led by
Isaias Afwerki, assumed control of Eritrea and established a
provisional government. This provisional government independently
administered Eritrea until April 23-25, 1993, when Eritreans voted
overwhelmingly for independence in a UN-monitored free and fair
referendum. Eritrea was with Ethiopia’s consent declared independent
on April 27, and the United States recognized its independence on
April 28, 1993.
In Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi and members of the TGE pledged
to oversee the formation of a multi-party democracy. The election
for a 547-member constituent assembly was held in June 1994, and
this assembly adopted the constitution of the Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia in December 1994. The elections for Ethiopia's
first popularly chosen national parliament and regional legislatures
were held in May and June 1995. Most opposition parties chose to
boycott these elections, ensuring a landslide victory for the EPRDF.
International and non-governmental observers concluded that
opposition parties would have been able to participate had they
chosen to do so. The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic
of Ethiopia was installed in August 1995.
In May 1998, Eritrean forces attacked part of the Ethiopia-Eritrea
border region, seizing some Ethiopian-controlled territory. The
strike spurred a two-year war between the neighboring states that
cost over 100,000 lives. Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders signed an
Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities on June 18, 2000 and a peace
agreement, known as the Algiers Agreement, on December 12, 2000. The
agreements called for an end to the hostilities, a 25-kilometer-wide
Temporary Security Zone along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, the
establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force to monitor
compliance, and the establishment of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary
Commission (EEBC) to act as a neutral body to assess colonial
treaties and applicable international law in order to render final
and binding border delimitation and demarcation determinations. The
United Nations Mission to Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) was
established in September 2000. The EEBC presented its border
delimitation decision on April 13, 2002. To date, neither Ethiopia
nor Eritrea has taken the steps necessary to demarcate the border.
Opposition candidates won 12 seats in national parliamentary
elections in 2001. Ethiopia held the most free and fair national
campaign period in the country’s history prior to May 15, 2005
elections. Unfortunately, electoral irregularities and tense
campaign rhetoric resulted in a protracted election complaints
review process. Public protests turned violent in June 2005. The
National Electoral Board released final results in September 2005,
with the opposition taking over 170 of the 547 parliamentary seats
and 137 of the 138 seats for the Addis Ababa municipal council.
Opposition parties called for a boycott of parliament and civil
disobedience to protest the election results. In early November
2005, Ethiopian security forces responded to public protests by
arresting scores of opposition leaders, as well as journalists and
human rights advocates, and detaining tens of thousands of civilians
in rural detention camps for up to three months. In December 2005,
the government charged 131 opposition, media, and civil society
leaders with capital offenses including "outrages against the
constitution." Key opposition leaders and almost all of the 131 were
pardoned and released from prison in the summer of 2007. As of March
2008, approximately 150 of the elected opposition members of
parliament had taken their seats. Ruling and opposition parties have
engaged in little dialogue since the opposition leaders were freed.
Government harassment made it very difficult for opposition
candidates to compete in local elections in April 2008.
In June 2008, former CUD vice-chairman Birtukan Mideksa was elected
the party chairman of the new Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ)
party at its inaugural session in Addis Ababa. In October 2008 the
Ethiopian Government initiated a crackdown on Oromo politicians,
arresting over 100 of them and accusing some of being members of the
outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). At the end of December 2008,
after detaining Birtukan several times briefly during the month, the
government re-arrested her, saying that she had violated the
conditions of her pardon (she was one of the prominent opposition
leaders pardoned by the government in the summer of 2007). Her
original sentence of life imprisonment was reinstated.
Prime Minister Meles announced in December 2008 that the 3,000-4,000
Ethiopian forces in Somalia would be withdrawn by the end of the
year. He stated that the Ethiopian army had accomplished its mission
of routing the Islamic extremists. Troops would remain near the
Somali border, where they would be prepared to immediately intervene
again should the extremists regroup and again threaten Ethiopia. By
the end of January 2009, the Ethiopian army had fully withdrawn from
Somalia. |
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