Tomorrow I head to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I will be from May 26 until July 19 devising a business plan and implementation strategy for a leper colony that produces beautiful handicrafts and woven cloth, yet struggles to sell its goods because of obvious stigma-related market access issues. My brother Chris will join me for the second month there, and he’ll be working on a survey project for the World Health Organization. From there, we’ll meet the rest of the family in Cairo for two weeks of traveling and diving in Egypt, before returning to the States on August 1. But before I regale you with tales from Addis, do the history major in me a favor by indulging in a little Ethiopian history.
Nearly 5,000 years ago, Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea constituted the Land of Punt, constituting a trading empire rich in natural resources and trading partners. Out of this sprawling area rose the remarkable civilization of the Kingdom of Aksum, fortuitously situated at the important commercial crossroads of flourishing trade among the peoples of the Horn of Africa. During its apogee, the Askumite kingdom extended west to the Sudanese Nile Valley and north into southern Arabia, cementing its reputation as one of the great civilizations of the era.
Around the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia, a historical development that would exert immense influence on the societal and cultural fabric of the country. Centuries later, after the introduction of Islam, Christians and Muslims enjoyed good relations, but rising Arab civilizations caused the commercial center of gravity to slowly shift across the Red Sea. Doomed to commercial irrelevance, Ethiopia entered a dark period of its history, during which the little-known Zagwe Dynasty ruled.
Yet around 1270, Yekuno Amlak established the ‘Solomonic dynasty,’ which would reign for the next 500 years, and which ushered in Ethiopia’s well-documented Middle Ages. Contacts with European Christendom skyrocketed as opportunists realized Ethiopia’s geostrategic importance, and for decades bloody religious wars between Muslims and Christians wracked the Horn. With the Muslim population largely debilitated, the nomadic warrior horsemen of the Oromos moved in from the south to fill the power vacuum, and the next 200 years of Ethiopian history was characterized by intermittent armed conflict with the bellicose Oromos.
In 1636, Emperor Fasiladas established a permanent capital at Gondor, and under his rule Ethiopia once again experienced a golden age of commercial flourishing and architectural grandeur, despite the palace intrigue that played out amidst Gondor’s court. As Gondor waned, Ethiopia splintered into regional fiefdoms, until the capable ruler Emperor Tewodros was crowned in 1855. Unfortunately, Tewodros aroused the wrath of the British when he imprisoned some visiting Brits, and British forces routed Tewodros, seriously weakening Ethiopia and creating an opening for hungry European colonial powers.
Emperor Yohannes soon filled the power gap, and his military prowess helped revolutionize the Ethiopian armed forces, but the expansionistic Italians, lured by the strategic potential of the Red Sea, landed in Eritrea with eyes set firmly on Ethiopia. The next emperor, Menelik, at first enjoyed harmonious relations with the Italians, but a linguistic discrepancy in the Amharic translation of the Treaty of Wechale quickly soured relations. Incessantly provoked by Italian forces, Menelik’s troops finally marched to Adwa where they handed the Italians a resounding defeat, maintaining Ethiopia’s independence amidst a continent entirely dominated by colonialism.
Following Menelik’s natural death in 1913, and a brief rule by his young grandson, the illustrious Prince Ras Tafari came to power, and successfully secured Ethiopia’s entry into the League of Nations in 1923, overwhelmingly considered a diplomatic coup for an African nation during the proverbial colonial scramble of the early twentieth century. Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Salassie in 1930, and soon thereafter Ethiopia saw its first written constitution, but again Italian expansionism overshadowed domestic successes.
Ethiopia’s location between the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia rendered it desirable to Mussolini, and in 1934 the Italians provoked Ethiopian forces, creating the pretext for invasion. Defying the Geneva Convention, the Italians relied heavily on mustard gas and bombed civilian targets, prompting a triumphant Mussolini to declare in 1936 that “Ethiopia is Italian.” With the outbreak of WWII, however, the Italians diverted military resources from their Ethiopian venture, and in 1941 Ethiopian patriots marched unchallenged into Addis Ababa.
Although Ethiopia underwent rapid modernization, discontent over the authoritarian nature of the government simmered among the populace, and in 1973 a radical military organization called the Derg (Committee) arrested Salassie and dissolved parliament. In late 1974 the Derg proclaimed a socialist state, and bolstered by generous military aid from the Soviet Union, Ethiopia finally neutralized the lingering Somali border threat. Yet a ruthless Red Terror campaign and severe famine, compounded by the fall of the Soviet Union, ushered in a democratic government under Meles Zenawi, who continues to rule today.
Just as it seemed Ethiopia had emerged from the woods, in 1997 Eritrea replaced the Ethiopian birr with the nakfa currency, prompting a seismic diplomatic rift between the two erstwhile allies. Both countries engaged in prolonged bombing campaigns against one another, and in February 1999 an all-out military conflict engulfed the region, lasting until a December 2000 ceasefire, yet at the price of tens of thousands of civilian casualties. Since 2001, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea has supervised the demilitarized zone until withdrawing due to crippling supply restrictions imposed by Eritrea, prompting fears of renewed border hostilities.
Currently, Ethiopia enjoys moderate political stability, at least relatively speaking. Following the tumultuous 2005 elections, mass protests rocked the capital of Addis Ababa, leading to thousands of arrests and nearly one hundred civilian casualties. In 2006, Ethiopia invaded Somalia to eliminate the threat posed by the Islamic Courts Union, a radical Islamist organization widely believed to sponsor al-Qaeda. But after becoming bogged down in a bloody sectarian struggle in Somalia, Ethiopian troops were replaced by African Union peacekeepers in 2009, ending Ethiopian military involvement there. Today, the ongoing border conflict with Eritrea dominates Ethiopian foreign affairs, and both countries are widely believed to be fighting a proxy war in neighboring Somalia, further destabilizing the Horn.
Fortunately for me, Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders had the courtesy to fight a proxy war, relieving me of any serious concerns regarding the enduring border hostilities. One development that could prove interesting is the violence almost certain to follow elections, scheduled for May 23, but with the results announced on June 21. May elections are not expected to provoke violence, but the State Department has issued a word of caution to nationals following the release of election results in June, so expect updates as that date draws closer. See below for selected New York Times articles (coverage has been extensive in recent weeks) regarding elections.
