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Ethiopia: Deforestation: Difference between revisions
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Ethiopia: Deforestation (view source)
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[[File:Ethiopian highlands 01 mod.jpg|thumb|The Ethiopian Highlands]] | [[File:Ethiopian highlands 01 mod.jpg|thumb|The Ethiopian Highlands]] | ||
[[File:Selassie.jpg|thumb|Emperor Haile Selassie]] | [[File:Selassie.jpg|thumb|Emperor Haile Selassie]] | ||
==History== | |||
Ethiopia has a rich and varied history, but its modern history which arguably laid the foundations of its long and bloody conflict in the late 20th century and its current position as one of the poorest nations on the planet began with the first overt European interference in the country’s affairs in the mid-19th century. Until 1936, Ethiopia had avoided the fate of most other African nations during the Europeans’ scramble for African colonies, although it was subject to military attacks, first by the British during an 1868 expedition to Abyssinia to rescue British nationals imprisoned by King Tewodros II, and then the Italians, who were desperate to keep up with the British, French, Belgians by carving out their own little piece of empire on the continent. Italian companies acquired land in Eritrea on the Red Sea board of Ethiopia in the 1870s and 1880s and then occupied it with Italian soldiers in 1888. Under Emperor Menelik II, the Ethiopians signed the Treaty of Wuchale with the Italians in 1889, granting them part of Northern Ethiopia in return for guns and ammunition to help fight the Egyptian Sudanese. The Italians said this gave them power over all Ethiopia, but Menelik demurred, saying the native Amharic language version of the treaty said no such thing. Tensions came to a head in 1896 when the two nations went to war and the Italians were completely defeated at the Battle of Adowa – the first time a European army had ever been beaten by an African military force. The Italians recognised the full independence of Ethiopia as a result, although they never forgot their humiliation and returned to militarily intervene in Ethiopia again in 1936 under Mussolini. | |||
Menelik was followed in quick succession by his grandson Lyasu V in 1913, who was deposed by the Ethiopian Christian nobility three years later because of his Muslim ties, and then Menelik’s daughter Zauditu, while her cousin, Ras Tafari Makonnen, was made regent and heir apparent. After the death of Empress Zauditu in 1930, Ras Tafari succeeded to the throne as Emperor Haile Selassie I (Haile Selassie is worshipped as the reincarnation of Jesus by adherents of Rastafarianism). | |||
In 1935, the Italians, who had been waiting for an opportunity to take revenge for Adowa, invaded. Haile Selassie, as the only independent black monarch in Africa, appealed to the League of Nations for aid, but the western powers failed to help and Ethiopia was formerly annexed by Italy in 1936, with Selassie going into exile. He returned in 1941 after the British defeated Italian forces in Africa during World War Two. | |||
In a spurt of energy after the war, Selassie promoted the modernisation of Ethiopia. He opened the first university in Addis Ababa in 1950, introduced a constitution in 1955 that expanded the powers of parliament and improved relations with other African nations by helping to establish the Organisation of African Unity. Unfortunately, Ethiopia became caught up in a war from 1961 with the province of Eritrea, which had been an Italian colony for many decades and which had then been annexed by Ethiopia in 1943. It had been self-governing under a federal system until 1961, when its parliament was shut down by Selassie and the Ethiopian language Amharic made compulsory at all Eritrean schools. This war lasted more than 30 years until Eritrea gained full independence in 1993. | |||
Selassie’s advancing age, his increasing distance from the daily life of his subjects, and the sense among a growing number of Marxist-oriented Ethiopians during the climate of the Cold War that the conflict with Eritrea was imperialist in nature. Inflation, corruption and famine added to the growing unrest in the country and eventually military coup was staged by Marxist officers in the army under Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1974. The last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, was murdered in 1975. | |||
== Resources == | == Resources == | ||