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The Derg had initially approached the Western Bloc, including the United States and Western European countries, but shifted towards the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact) due to the lack of US support for Ethiopia and the recurring human rights violations in the country. The foreign policy of the military regime was characterized by a ...
The Derg (or Dergue; Amharic: ደርግ, lit. ' committee ' or ' council '), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), [4] [5] was the military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military junta formally "civilianized" the administration but stayed in power until 1991.
Map during the Ethiopian Civil War showing insurgent strategic route in advance of Addis Ababa. The EPLF and ELF were successful in seizing 80% of Eritrea, but the Derg as soon as diverted their attention to Eritrea after victory against Somalia, fearing the loss of Red Sea in isolation of Ethiopia. In early 1978, they organized 90,000 powerful ...
July – the famine garnered international attention especially from Western community. The Oxfam and Live Aid concerted charity which ignited controversy whether NGOs in Ethiopia were under the control of Derg government or Oxfam and Live Aid coordinated to the Derg's enforced resettlement programmes, which displaced and killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people.
The Derg, the military junta that had ruled Ethiopia as a provisional government since 1974, planned for transition to civilian rule and proclaimed a socialist republic in 1984 after five years of preparation. The Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was founded that same year as a vanguard party led by Derg chairman Mengistu Haile Mariam.
Under the 1987 Constitution of Ethiopia, the military rule of the Derg evolved into the civilian government of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and chapter 8 of the Constitution determined that the state would be subdivided into "autonomous regions" and "administrative regions".
[18] [19] That year, most industries and private urban real estate holdings were nationalized by the Derg regime. The assets of the former royal family were all seized and were nationalized in a program designed to implement the state ideology of socialism. Under the Derg, the new Ethiopian military was dominated by the Amhara ethnic group
A semi-feudal mode of production was a major characteristic of the Ethiopian Empire's economy for a number of centuries.The land – which was the most essential mode of production – had been amassed by the church (over 25%), Emperor Haile Selassie and his family (20%), the feudal lords (30%) and the state (18%), leaving a mere 7% to the roughly 23 million Ethiopian peasants.