History

Early History

Human settlement in Ethiopia is very ancient; bones of the earliest ancestors to the human species, discovered in Ethiopia, have been assigned dates as long ago as 5.8 million years. Together with Eritrea and the southeastern part of the Red Sea coast of Sudan, it is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt (or 'Ta Netjeru,' meaning land of the Gods), whose first mention dates to the 25th century BC.

Aksum and D'mt

Around the 8th century BC, a kingdom known as D'mt was established in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with its capital at Yeha in northern Ethiopia. After the fall of D'mt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms, until the rise of one of these kingdoms during the 1st century BC, the Aksumite Kingdom, ancestor of medieval and modern Ethiopia, which was able to reunite the area. The people of Askim established bases on the northern highlands of the Ethiopian Plateau and from there expanded southward.

In 316 AD, a Christian philosopher from Tyre, Meropius, embarked on a voyage of exploration along the coast of Africa. He was accompanied by, among others, two Syro-Greeks, Frumentius and his brother Aedesius. The vessel was stranded on the coast, and the natives killed all the travellers except the two brothers, who were taken to the court and given positions of trust by the monarch. They both practiced the Christian faith in private, and soon converted the queen and several other members of the royal court. Upon the king's death, Frumentius was appointed regent of the realm by the queen, and instructor of her young son, Prince Ezana. A few years later, upon Ezana's coming of age, Aedesius and Frumentius left the kingdom, the former returning to Tyre where he was ordained, and the latter journeying to Alexandria. Here, he consulted Athanasius, who ordained him and appointed him Bishop of Axum. He returned to the court and baptized the King Ezana, together with many of his subjects, and Christianity was proclaimed the official state religion. For this accomplishment, he received the title 'Abba Selama' ('Father of peace').

At various times, including a fifty-year period in the sixth century, Axum controlled most of modern-day Yemen and some of southern Saudi Arabia just across the Red Sea, as well as southern Egypt, northern Sudan, northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and northern Somalia.

The line of rulers descended from the Axumite kings was broken several times: first by the Jewish (unknown/or pagan) Queen Gudit around 950 (or possibly around 850, as in Ethiopian histories). It was then interrupted by the Zagwe dynasty, during which time the famous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were carved under King Lalibela. Around 1270, the Solomonic dynasty came to control Ethiopia, claiming descent from the kings of Axum. They called themselves Neguse Negest ('King of Kings,' or Emperor), basing their claims on their direct descent from Solomon and the queen of Sheba.

Contact with Europe

During the reign of Emperor Yeshaq, Ethiopia made its first successful diplomatic contact with a European country since Aksumite times, sending two emissaries to Alfons V of Aragon. The first continuous relations with a European country began in 1508 with Portugal under Emperor Lebna Dengel, who had just inherited the throne from his father.

This proved to be an important development, for when the Empire was subjected to the attacks of the Adal General and Imam, Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi (called 'Grañ', or 'the Left-handed'), Portugal responded to Lebna Dengel's plea for help with an army of four hundred men, who helped defeat Ahmad and re-establish his rule.

However, years of revolt and civil unrest developed when Emperor Susenyos converted to Roman Catholicism in 1624, resulting in thousands of deaths, and in1632, Susenyos' son, Emperor Fasilides, declared the state religion would revert again to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and expelled the Jesuit missionaries and other Europeans.

All of this contributed to Ethiopia's isolation from 1755 to 1855. The Emperors became figureheads, controlled by warlords such as Ras Mikael Sehul of Tigray, and later by the Oromo Yejju dynasty. Ethiopian isolationism ended following a British mission that concluded an alliance between the two nations; however, it was not until the reign of Emperor Tewodros II, who began modernising Ethiopia and recentralising power in the Emperor that Ethiopia began to take part in world affairs once again.

Escaping the Scramble for Africa

The 1880s were marked by the Scramble for Africa and modernisation in Ethiopia, when the Italians began to vie with the British for influence in bordering regions. Asseb, a port near the southern entrance of the Red Sea, was bought from the local Afar sultan, vassal to the Ethiopian Emperor, in March 1870 by an Italian company, which by 1890 led to the Italian colony of Eritrea. Conflicts between the two countries resulted in the Battle of Adowa in 1896, whereby the Ethiopians surprised the world by defeating the colonial power and remaining independent, under the rule of Menelik II. Italy and Ethiopia signed a provisional treaty of peace on October 26, 1896.

The early 20th century was marked by the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie I, who undertook the rapid modernisation of Ethiopia - interrupted only by the brief Italian occupation (1936-1941). British and patriot Ethiopian troops liberated the Ethiopian homeland in 1941, which was followed by sovereignty on January 31, 1941 and British recognition of full sovereignty (i.e. without any special British privileges) with the signing of the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement in December 1944.

Selassie Years

In 1962, Haile Selassie's government annexed Eritrea, a state that had already been federated with the Ethiopian Crown, which led to the Eritrean War of Independence. Although Haile Selassie was seen as a national and African hero, opinion turned against him as nobility filled their pockets whilst millions of landless peasants went hungry. In 1974 students, workers, peasants and the army rose against him, and his reign came to an end when a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist military junta, the 'Derg' led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, deposed him and established a one-party communist state. Haile Selassie was imprisoned and probably tortured to death by the junta, who demanded that he turn over Ethiopia's 25-million-dollar deposits in Switzerland to the junta.

Red Terror

The ensuing Derg regime suffered several coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought and a massive refugee problem. The efforts by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) to discredit and undermine the Derg and its MEISON (All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement) collaborators escalated in the autumn of 1976. It targeted public buildings and other symbols of state authority for bombings and assassinated numerous Abyot Seded (Revolutionary Flame) and MEISON members, as well as public officials at all levels. The Derg, which countered with its own Red Terror campaign, labelled the EPRP's tactics the White Terror. Mengistu asserted that all 'progressives' were given 'freedom of action' in helping root out the revolution's enemies, and peasants, workers, public officials and students thought to be loyal to the Mengistu regime were provided with arms to accomplish this task.

Mengistu's decision resulted in fratricidal chaos. Many of the civilians he armed were EPRP sympathisers rather than supporters of MEISON or the Derg. Between early 1977 and late 1978, roughly 5,000 people were killed. In the process, the Derg became estranged from civilian groups, including MEISON. By early 1979, Abyot Seded stood alone as the only officially recognised political organisation; the others were branded enemies of the revolution. Growing human rights violations prompted the United States, Ethiopia's superpower patron, to counsel moderation. However, the Derg continued to use extreme measures against its real and perceived opponents to ensure its survival. From 1975-1978, Mengistu Haile Mariam was alleged to be responsible for the 7th worst genocide in world history. Around 1,500,000 Ethiopians were claimed to be the victims of the Derg genocide.

In addition to the urban guerrilla warfare being waged by the EPRP, nationalist movements also stepped up their military campaigns in the countryside. By the end of 1976, the Eritreans had made substantial gains in rural areas, forcing Ethiopian troops into garrisons and urban centres in Eritrea.

In July 1977, sensing the disarray in Ethiopia, Somalia attacked across the Ogaden in pursuit of its irredentist claims to the ethnic Somali areas of Ethiopia. Ethiopian forces were driven back far inside their own frontiers but, with the assistance of a massive Soviet airlift of arms and Cuban combat forces, they stemmed the attack. The last major Somali regular units left the Ogaden March 15, 1978. Twenty years later, the Somali region of Ethiopia remains under-developed and insecure.

In 1984, the Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was established, and on February 1, 1987, a new Soviet-style civilian constitution was submitted to a popular referendum. It was officially endorsed by 81% of voters, and in accordance with this new constitution, the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia on September 10, 1987, and Mengistu became president.

The regime's collapse was hastened by droughts and famine, which affected around 8 million people, leaving 1 million dead, as well as by insurrections, particularly in the northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea. In 1989, the Tigrayan Peoples' 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 to asylum in Zimbabwe, where he still resides, despite attempts by Ethiopia to extradite him to face trial by the present Ethiopian government. Mengistu Haile Mariam was tried in absentia and convicted for crimes (genocide) committed by his Marxist government from 1974 to 1991; however, there is no extradition treaty between Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

Secession of Eritrea

In 1993, following a referendum, the annexed province of Eritrea (of which part was considered Ethiopia prior to Italian colonization) became independent from Ethiopia, ending more than thirty years of armed conflict, one of the longest in Africa. In 1994, a constitution was adopted that led to Ethiopia's first multi-party elections in the following year. In May 1998, a dispute over the undemarcated border with Eritrea led to the Eritrean-Ethiopian War that lasted until June 2000. This has hurt the nation's economy, but strengthened the ruling coalition. On May 15, 2005, Ethiopia held another multiparty election, and resulted in the EPRDF's disputed return to power.