Ethiopia – national flag
Ethiopia – National Flag, The flag’s three colors, red, yellow and green, have a long tradition in Ethiopia. They remained from the late 1800’s. used as three pennants and from 1897 put together into a rectangular flag with first red at the top, later green at the top. The colors were quickly taken over by many African states and known as the Pan-African colors. The flag was reappeared in Ethiopia in 1941. The emblem in the middle of the flag was added in February 1996; the star is said to represent “the nations, nationalities and people of Ethiopia”. The blue background should symbolize peace. The proportions are 1: 2.
- Countryaah: What does the flag of Ethiopia look like? Follow this link, then you will see the image in PNG format and flag meaning description about this country.
Ethiopia – History
Ethiopia – history, Ethiopia has a long history. From the Pharaohs of Egypt, references to the land are known. The name Abyssinia, which was the country’s official name until 1941, originated in Egyptian and originally referred to all land south of Egypt.
- AbbreviationFinder: Check three-letter abbreviation for each country in the world, such as ETH which represents the official name of Ethiopia.
Aksumriget
From approximately 100 BC and up to 700-h. the king, later the empire of Aksum, was a great power whose dominance extended from the highlands of Tigre to the coasts along the Arabian Peninsula, into Nubia and south to present-day Somalia. Aksum’s economic base was a developed agriculture and trade. A navy and a good port, Adulis, secured contact with Egypt, but also with more distant ones such as Greece and Iran.
Christianity became the official religion of Aksum under King Ezana approximately 330. From that period also come the first inscriptions in the language geez. The link between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the imperial institutions became crucial to the kingdom’s identity and unity. Political and religious power concentrated on two peoples: Tigrays and Amharas, and this dominance has remained to this day. Aksum and the rock churches in Lalibela from approximately 1200 are important monuments to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Islam came to the country through trade with the Arabian Peninsula in the 600th century. and won among the peoples of eastern and southern Ethiopia. In doing so, the foundation was laid for the religious rivalry that has been a pervasive feature of Ethiopia’s history.
In the Middle Ages, the Ethiopian Empire was under pressure as a result of Arab conquests along the Red Sea, declining trade revenues as well as conflicts between an expanding Muslim sultanate around Harar and the Christian kingdom in the highlands. Only with the help of Portuguese soldiers did they succeed in slowing down the Muslim expansion in 1543. During that period, the un-populated territory in central Ethiopia won. In 1636 the court moved to Gondar, but its base was eroded, and power slipped to a number of conflicting princes. This ruler lasted until the mid-1800’s.
Modern Ethiopia
Under the emperors Tewodros II (1855-68), John 4. (1872-89) and Menelik 2. (1889-1913) a new, strong Ethiopia was built. It happened during a period of great pressure on Ethiopian unity and independence. Ethnic and religious groups in changing alliances contested each other, while foreign powers tried to conquer.
| Heads of State (selected) | |
| 1855-68 | Tewodros 2. |
| 1872-89 | John 4. |
| 1889-1913 | Menelik 2. |
| 1913-16 | Suffice Iyasu |
| 1916-30 | Zauditu |
| 1930-74 | Haile Selassie |
| 1974-87 | dergen |
| 1987-91 | Mengistu Haile Mariam |
| 1991-95 | Meles Zenawi |
| 1995-2001 | Negaso Gidada |
| 2001-13 | Giruma Wolde-Giyorgis Lucha |
| 2013 | Mulatu Teshome |
According to a2zgov, Tewodro’s 2nd overthrew the prince’s rule in Gondar and restored the central power. However, he committed suicide in 1868 after losing a battle at Magdala to a British expeditionary force, which immediately withdrew from Ethiopia. John IV slowed the advance of the Egyptians in 1875/76, but had to identify with the Italian presence at Massawa on the Eritrean coast. Muslim troops from Sudan, mahdists, penetrated Gondar and threatened the Ethiopian kingdom. The Ethiopians defeated them at Metemma in 1889; However, John was killed in the battle.
In 1886, Ethiopia’s new capital, Addis Ababa, was founded. Menelik II defeated the Italian army at Adwa in 1896. Nevertheless, Italy secured a colony in Eritrea during the subsequent negotiations. With French help, a railway was built for Djibouti, just as the first schools, banks, hospitals and a printing press came to Addis Ababa in Menelik’s time.
Haile Selassie’s reign
From 1916, Ras Tafari, who was the regent of Menelik’s daughter Empress Zauditu, launched a political and economic modernization program that included a modern army, a teaching system and the building of a central and local administration. In 1930, Ras Tafari was crowned emperor as Haile Selassie. Ethiopia was occupied by Mussolini’s Italy in 1936, and the emperor went into exile to London. In 1941, the Italians were beaten by Allied forces, after which Haile Selassie returned. After World War II, Ethiopia joined the West and for a number of years became the largest recipient of US development and military aid in Africa.
Despite outside help and continued modernization, which rarely extended beyond the major urban centers, dissatisfaction among younger officers, students and intellectuals grew in the last decade of the empire. The opposition called for democracy, a settlement of the privileges and land reform of the aristocracy and the imperial family for the deeply impoverished rural population.
In Eritrea, armed resistance grew from 1962 when Haile Selassie incorporated the area as a province of the Ethiopian Empire. Since World War II, Eritrea, due to its past as an Italian colony (1889-1941), had a special status in federation with Ethiopia.
Revolution and Civil War
Efter en voldsom tørke i 1972-73 med over 200.000 døde og fortsat uro i flere provinser begyndte en gruppe yngre officerer den såkaldte krybende revolution, der i september 1974 kulminerede med kejserens afsættelse. Haile Selassie døde i fangenskab knap et år senere, formodentlig myrdet efter ordre fra kupofficererne.
A temporary military council, Dergen, took power in Ethiopia in 1974. Parliament was disbanded and the imperial family and other aristocracy’s possessions were nationalized, along with private companies and large tracts of land. Up to 1977, there was a riot in the coup officers and various Marxist groups. Major Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged from the bloody power struggles as victor, and after a period of 1977-79 with “red terror” in which 10,000 opponents were killed, Mengistu became Ethiopia’s undisputed ruler.
Threatening military defeats to rebel movements in both Ogaden, supported by Somalia, and in Eritrea were initially stymied by massive support from Ethiopia’s new allies, the Soviet Union, Cuba and the other eastern bloc, which also provided support when the Ogaden conflict developed in 1978 to an actual war with Somalia, which Ethiopia emerged as victorious. With financial help from this, Mengistu launched a socialist-inspired development program, but he never got away with the extreme poverty of the rural population, the growing food deficit or the pervasive rebel and liberation movements in, among other things. Eritrea, Tigers and among the Oromans.
Renewed drought and widespread famine in the mid-1980’s further undermined belief in Mengistu’s rule. In 1987, the rebel army Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) took over control of the entire Tigre province. In Eritrea, Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) was in the offensive. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, military and financial support ceased and the days of the Mengistur regime appeared to be talking. On May 21, 1991, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, the more than 400,000-strong army of Africa, Africa’s largest, disintegrated and the rebel movements captured Addis Ababa.
Since the 1990’s
The EPLF assumed power in Eritrea, which since 1991 has been ruled as an independent state. Eritrea’s independence was confirmed by a 1993 referendum in Eritrea and among Eritreans in Ethiopia. In the 1990’s, the country was initially on good terms with Eritrea, while relations with Sudan were strained. However, in 1998-99 it came to an open war with Eritrea on a disputed area by the town of Badme. The war culminated in February 1999 in a bloody battle in which Ethiopian forces conquered the city. The UN negotiated a peace in place in 2000.
In the rest of Ethiopia, power was taken over by a temporary government under TPLF leader Meles Zenawi, but already in 1992, significant groups of Oromos, Amharas and a coalition of South Ethiopian tribes broke out of government cooperation. A constitution for a federated Ethiopia was nevertheless introduced at the end of 1994. In principle, it provides a broad framework for local self-government in ten ethnically determined regions, including the use of the region’s language as well as the favoring of locals in public office, land acquisition, etc. It is a deliberate attempt to break what is perceived as centuries of Amharic domination.
At the 1995 parliamentary elections, the TPLF-dominated Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won an almost total election victory. Opposition parties boycotted the election, declared by several observers to be technically well-executed, but hardly representative in the absence of counter-candidates. Parliament appointed the Oromo Negaso Gidada to the ceremonial post as president. Meles Zenawi of Tigre became prime minister and head of government. Since then, opposition to the EPRDF regime has grown, most recently in the 2005 elections that led to bloody clashes. In 2006, Ethiopia’s army invaded Somalia, supporting the Somali transitional government’s fight against the Islamists, who had taken over the rule in much of Somalia; in a short time managed to occupy the most important cities, including Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
At the 2010 election, Meles won the Zenawi for the fourth time; the opposition refused to recognize the election result. In 2011, Ethiopia was again hit by severe drought, which is considered one of the worst in 60 years. Nearly 5 million people in Ethiopia are affected by the drought. In 2012, Meles Zenawi died, under whose leadership the country saw economic progress; he was succeeded by Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.