Communist Dictatorship in Ethiopia: Death of Millions of Innocents, Reign of Brutality and Terror

The 'Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia', popularly known as Ethiopia, is the second most populous nation in North East Africa and the city of Addis Ababa is its capital. The impact of communism in Ethiopia, as in other parts of the world, is so deep that the wounds inflicted by it are still visible.

Other internal events, including the events of World War II, had profound effects on Ethiopian society and politics, as well as changes to Ethiopia's geographical boundaries. After this, Ethiopia saw the worst period of its political history, that of communist military dictatorship.

In September 1974, the Ethiopian security authorities completely seized power. Armed forces, police and Territorial Army officials together carried out this incident. This military coup was called 'Derg', which basically stemmed with the idea of Marxism and Leninism.

Mengistu Haile Mariam was elected head of this communist military dictatorship and ruled Ethiopia until the end of his dictatorship (1987). During his communist dictatorship, Mengistu either jailed or executed all his opponents.

The situation turned so hostile that, in the period 1975-77, Ethiopia also witnessed a civil war, which resulted in huge loss of life and property. However, it is communist's bloody history that it has sacrificed its own citizens for power, be it Soviet Union or China, or Ethiopia.

In this era of communist dictatorship, the lives of theistic (people who have faith in God) Ethiopian citizens also began to be adversely affected. In fact, keeping forward its Marxist-Leninist ideology, this communist dictatorship military government of Ethiopia adopted the policy of 'state atheism'. Under this, a campaign was launched to eliminate the symbols related to religion and religiosity in the whole country.

The policy also led to the closure of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which had been representing the Christian group for centuries. The general public tried to protest against that dictatorial government but the communist government crushed all their protests.

As soon as Ethiopia's communist government established complete control of power and began to overwhelm critics, it waged war against all forms of dissidents and insurgents. During this period, groups fighting for the independence of Eritrea, rebels protesting in Tigray, and people campaigning against the communist dictatorship were massacred by the dictatorial leader of Ethiopia.

In the month of March 1975, this military communist dictatorship government of Ethiopia made such a decision, which shook the entire economy of Ethiopia. The way agricultural land was nationalized during the Communist rule in Soviet, with the same idea, agricultural land was nationalized in Ethiopia.

Not only agriculture, but industry, banks, insurance, wide-scale trade and urban land were also nationalized. But as with every communist regime, corruption, anarchy and lawlessness led to a sharp decline in productivity, and Ethiopia saw a severe famine in the 1980s.

This situation was also similar to that seen in the Soviet Union and China under the communist regime, where similar impractical land laws were introduced and then there was such a severe famine in both those countries that millions of people were killed and crores of people were affected. .

Since this communist military dictatorship power established in Ethiopia believed in Marxist-Leninist thought. That is why the communist government of the then Soviet Union was supporting him in every way.

Mengistu, the head of the dictatorial power, used to demand from the Soviet Union for the help of economic and military equipment, which was also fulfilled by the Soviet. However, there came a time when the Soviet Union itself was on the verge of disintegration and refused to provide military help to the dictator of Ethiopia.

This is the reason why Mengistu announced in 1987 to end the military communist dictatorship and adopt the constitution, because he knew that without the help of the Soviet Union, his communist dictatorship rule in Ethiopia would not last long. Because he was facing opposition in Ethiopia, as well as insurgents from Tigray and Eritrea who had grown in power and were now overshadowing Ethiopia's communist regime.

The result of Mengistu's communist policies was that more than 100,000 Ethiopians died of starvation due to a severe famine. Millions of people fled Ethiopia, fed up with poverty, communist policies, forced labor, forced population transfers, and persecution.

In the last years of the 1970s, the rule of the Soviet Union was copied exactly in Ethiopia. The same kind of political terror, red terror, nationalization and just like that taking the country's economy into dire straits, everything happened the same way.

Like the Soviet one, the bloodlust of the Ethiopian communist dictatorship was such that it invaded Somalia as well and armed struggle with Eritrea continued until the end of the communist regime.

In 1989, the Soviet Communist government refused to supply arms to the Ethiopian Communist dictator. After this, when Mengistu's power ended in 1991, Cuba and the Soviets stopped all economic and military cooperation. However, this was the period when the Soviet itself was about to disintegrate.

After the end of communist power in 1991, when the misdeeds committed by them were investigated, many kinds of revelations came to the fore. In 1995, a witness said that between February 1977 and June 1978, more than 10,000 political murders were committed, and all these murders took place only in the capital, not counting other places.

Thousands of court trials ensued and eventually communist dictator Mengistu was found guilty of genocide in 2006 along with 71 other officials.