THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE ARE ETHNICALLY heterogeneous, comprising more
than 100 groups, each speaking a dialect of one of more than seventy
languages. The Amhara, Oromo, and Tigray are the largest groups. With
the accession of Menelik II to the throne in 1889, the ruling class
consisted primarily of the Amhara, a predominantly Christian group that
constitutes about 30 percent of the population and occupies the central
highlands. The Oromo, who constitute about 40 percent of the population,
are half Orthodox Christians and half Muslims whose traditional alliance
with the Amhara in Shewa included participation in public administration
and the military. Predominantly Christian, the Tigray occupy the far
northern highlands and make up 12 to 15 percent of the population. They
or their Eritrean neighbors had been battling the government for nearly
three decades and by 1991 had scored many battlefield successes.
According to estimates based on the first census (1984), Ethiopia's
population was 51.7 million in 1990 and was projected to reach more than
67 million by the year 2000. About 89 percent of the people live in
rural areas, large sectors of which have been ravaged by drought,
famine, and war. The regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam embarked on
controversial villagization and resettlement programs to combat these
problems. Villagization involved the relocation of rural people into
villages, while resettlement moved people from drought-prone areas in
the north to sparsely populated and resource-rich areas in the south and
southwest. The international community criticized both programs for poor
implementation and the consequent toll in human lives.
The traditional social system in the northern highlands was, in
general, based on landownership and tenancy. After conquest, Menelik II
(reigned 1889-1913) imposed the north's imperial system on the conquered
south. The government appointed many Amhara administrators, who
distributed land among themselves and relegated the indigenous peasants
to tenancy. The 1974 revolution swept away this structure of ethnic and
class dominance. The Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC;
also known as the Derg) appointed representatives of the Workers' Party of
Ethiopia and the national system of peasant associations to implement
land reform. Additionally, the government organized urban centers into a
hierarchy of urban dwellers' associations (kebeles). Despite these reforms, however, dissatisfaction and
covert opposition to the regime continued in the civilian and military
sectors.
Prior to the 1974 revolution, the state religion of Ethiopia had been
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, whose adherents comprised perhaps 40 to
50 percent of the population, including a majority of the Amhara and
Tigray. Islam was the faith of about 40 percent of the population,
including large segments (perhaps half) of the Oromo and the people
inhabiting the contiguous area of the northern and eastern lowlands,
such as the Beja, Saho, Afar, and Somali. Adherents of indigenous belief
systems were scattered among followers of the two major religions and
could be found in more concentrated numbers on the western peripheries
of the highlands. In line with its policy that all religions were
equally legitimate, the regime in 1975 declared several Muslim holy days
national holidays, in addition to the Ethiopian Orthodox holidays that
were already observed.
Declaring education one of its priorities, the PMAC expanded the
education system at the primary level, especially in small towns and
rural areas, which had never had modern schools during the imperial era.
The new policy relocated control and operation of primary and secondary
schools to the subregion (awraja) level, where officials reoriented
curricula to emphasize agriculture, handicrafts, commercial training,
and other practical subjects. The regime also embarked on a national
literacy campaign.
The regime's health policy included expansion of rural health
services, promotion of community involvement, selfreliance in health
activities, and emphasis on the prevention and control of disease. As
with education, the PMAC decentralized health care administration to the
local level as part of its effort to encourage community involvement.
Despite an emphasis on rural health services, less than a third of the
total population had effective health coverage in mid-1991.
Ethiopia - Population
Ethiopia's population was estimated at 51.7 million in 1990.
According to the nation's only census, conducted in 1984, Ethiopia's
population was about 42 million. But the census was far from
comprehensive. The rural areas of Eritrea and Tigray were excluded
because of hostilities. In addition, the population in the southern
parts of Bale and Harerge could only be estimated because of the
prevalence of pastoral nomadism.
The 1984 census revealed that Ethiopia's population was about 89
percent rural, and this percentage did not appear to have changed by the
late 1980s. This segment included many nomadic and seminomadic peoples.
The Ethiopian population always has been predominantly rural, engaging
in sedentary agricultural activities such as the cultivation of crops
and livestock-raising in the highlands. In the lowlands, the main
activities traditionally have been subsistence farming by seminomadic
groups and seasonal grazing of livestock by nomadic people.
The distribution of Ethiopia's population generally is related to
altitude, climate, and soil. These physical factors explain the
concentration of population in the highlands, which are endowed with
moderate temperatures, rich soil, and adequate rainfall. About 14
percent of the population lives in areas above 2,400 meters (cool
climatic zone), about 75 percent between 1,500 and 2,400 meters
(temperate zone), and only 11 percent below 1,500 meters (hot climatic
zone), although the hot zone encompasses more than half of Ethiopia's
territory. Localities with elevations above 3,000 meters and below 1,500
meters are sparsely populated, the first because of cold temperatures
and rugged terrain, which limit agricultural activity, and the second
because of high temperatures and low rainfall, except in the west and
southwest.
Although census data indicated that overall density was about
thirty-seven people per square kilometer, density varied from over 100
per square kilometer for Shewa and seventy-five for Arsi to fewer than
ten in the Ogaden, Bale, the Great Rift Valley, and the western lowlands
adjoining Sudan. There was also great variation among the populations of
the various administrative regions.
In 1990 officials estimated the birth rate at forty-five births per
1,000 population and the total fertility rate (the average number of
children that would be born to a woman during her lifetime) at about
seven per 1,000 population. Census findings indicated that the birth
rate was higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Ethiopia's birth
rate, high even among developing countries, is explained by early and
universal marriage, kinship and religious beliefs that generally
encourage large families, a resistance to contraceptive practices, and
the absence of family planning services for most of the population. Many
Ethiopians believe that families with many children have greater
financial security and are better situated to provide for their elderly
members.
In the absence of a national population policy or the provision of
more than basic health services, analysts consider the high birth rate
likely to continue. A significant consequence of the high birth rate is
that the population is young; children under fifteen years of age made
up nearly 50 percent of the population in 1989. Thus, a large segment of the population was dependent and likely
to require heavy expenditures on education, health, and social services.
In 1990 the death rate was estimated at fifteen per 1,000 population
(down from 18.1 per 1,000 in 1984). This also was a very high rate but
typical of poor developing countries. The high death rate was a
reflection of the low standard of living, poor health conditions,
inadequate health facilities, and high rates of infant mortality (116
per 1,000 live births in 1990; 139 per 1,000 in 1984) and child
mortality. Additional factors contributing to the high death rate
include infectious diseases, poor sanitation, malnutrition, and food
shortages. Children are even more vulnerable to such deprivations. In
Ethiopia half of the total deaths involve children under five years of
age. In addition, drought and famine in the 1980s, during which more
than 7 million people needed food aid, interrupted the normal evolution
of mortality and fertility and undoubtedly left many infants and
children with stunted physical and mental capabilities. Life expectancy
in 1990 was estimated at forty-nine years for males and fifty-two years
for females.
Generally, birth rates, infant mortality rates, and overall mortality
rates were lower in urban areas than in rural areas. As of 1990, urban
residents had a life expectancy of just under fifty-three years, while
rural residents had a life expectancy of forty-eight years. The more
favorable statistics for urban areas can be explained by the wider
availability of health facilities, greater knowledge of sanitation,
easier access to clean water and food, and a slightly higher standard of
living.
There has been a steady increase in the population growth rate since
1960. Based on 1984 census data, population growth was estimated at
about 2.3 percent for the 1960-70 period, 2.5 percent for the 1970-80
period, and 2.8 percent for the 1980-85 period. Population projections
compiled in 1988 by the Central Statistical Authority (CSA) projected a
2.83 percent growth rate for 1985-90 and a 2.96 percent growth rate for
1990-95. This would result in a population of 57.9 million by 1995.
Estimated annual growth for 1995-2000 varied from 3.03 percent to 3.16
percent. Population estimates ranged from 67.4 million to 67.8 million
by the year 2000. The CSA projected that Ethiopia's population could
range from 104 million to 115 million by the year 2015. The
International Development Association (IDA) provided a more optimistic
estimate. Based on the assumption of a gradual fertility decline, such
as might be caused by steady economic development without high priority
given to population and family planning programs, the population growth
rate might fall to about 2.8 percent per annum in 1995-2000 and to 2.1
percent in 2010-15, resulting in a population of 93 million in 2015.
Analysts believed that reducing the population growth rate was a
pressing need, but one that could only be addressed through a persistent
and comprehensive nationwide effort over the long term. As of early
1991, the Ethiopian regime had shown no commitment to such a program.
Variations in population growth existed among administrative regions.
Kefa, Sidamo, and Shewa had the highest average growth rates for the
1967-84 period, ranging from 4.2 percent for Kefa to 3.5 percent for
Sidamo and Shewa. Whereas Shewa's population growth was the result of
Addis Ababa's status as the administrative, commercial, and industrial
center of Ethiopia, Kefa and Sidamo grew primarily because of
agricultural and urban development. The population in administrative
regions such as Harerge, Welo, and Tigray, which had been hard hit by
famine and insurrection, grew at slow rates: 1.3 percent, 1 percent, and
0.2 percent, respectively. Generally, the population of most central and
western administrative regions grew more rapidly than did the population
of the eastern and northern administrative regions.
<>Urbanization
Ethiopia was under-urbanized, even by African standards. In the late
1980s, only about 11 percent of the population lived in urban areas of
at least 2,000 residents. There were hundreds of communities with 2,000
to 5,000 people, but these were primarily extensions of rural villages
without urban or administrative functions. Thus, the level of
urbanization would be even lower if one used strict urban structural
criteria. Ethiopia's relative lack of urbanization is the result of the
country's history of agricultural self-sufficiency, which has reinforced
rural peasant life. The slow pace of urban development continued until
the 1935 Italian invasion. Urban growth was fairly rapid during and
after the Italian occupation of 1936-41. Urbanization accelerated during
the 1960s, when the average annual growth rate was about 6.3 percent.
Urban growth was especially evident in the northern half of Ethiopia,
where most of the major towns are located.
Addis Ababa was home to about 35 percent of the country's urban
population in 1987. Another 7 percent resided in Asmera, the second
largest city. Major industrial, commercial, governmental, educational,
health, and cultural institutions were located in these two cities,
which together were home to about 2 million people, or one out of
twenty-five Ethiopians. Nevertheless, many small towns had emerged as
well. In 1970 there were 171 towns with populations of 2,000 to 20,000;
this total had grown to 229 by 1980.
The period 1967-75 saw rapid growth of relatively new urban centers. The population of six towns--Akaki, Arba Minch, Awasa,
Bahir Dar, Jijiga, and Shashemene--more than tripled, and that of eight
others more than doubled. Awasa, Arba Minch, Metu, and Goba were newly
designated capitals of administrative regions and important agricultural
centers. Awasa, capital of Sidamo, had a lakeshore site and convenient
location on the Addis Ababa-Nairobi highway. Bahir Dar was a newly
planned city on Lake Tana and the site of several industries and a
polytechnic institute. Akaki and Aseb were growing into important
industrial towns, while Jijiga and Shashemene had become communications
and service centers.
Urban centers that experienced moderate growth tended to be more
established towns, such as Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa, and Debre Zeyit. A
few old provincial capitals, such as Gonder, also experienced moderate
growth, but others, such as Harer, Dese, Debre Markos, and Jima, had
slow growth rates because of competition from larger cities. By the
1990s, Harer was being overshadowed by Dire Dawa, Dese by Kembolcha, and
Debre Markos by Bahir Dar.
Overall, the rate of urban growth declined from 1975 to 1987. With
the exception of Aseb, Arba Minch, and Awasa, urban centers grew an
average of about 40 percent over that twelve-year period. This slow
growth is explained by several factors. Rural-to-urban migration had
been largely responsible for the rapid expansion during the 1967-75
period, whereas natural population growth may have been mostly
responsible for urban expansion during the 1975-84 period. The 1975 land
reform program provided incentives and opportunities for peasants and
other potential migrants to stay in rural areas. Restrictions on travel,
lack of employment, housing shortages, and social unrest in some towns
during the 1975-80 period also contributed to a decline in
rural-to-urban migration.
Although the male and female populations were about equal, men
outnumbered women in rural areas. More women migrated to the urban
centers for a variety of reasons, including increased job opportunities.
As a result of intensified warfare in the period 1988-91, all urban
centers received a large influx of population, resulting in severe
overcrowding, shortages of housing and water, overtaxed social services,
and unemployment. In addition to beggars and maimed persons, the new
arrivals comprised large numbers of young people. These included not
only primary and secondary school students but also an alarming number
of orphans and street children, estimated at well over 100,000. Although
all large towns shared in this influx, Addis Ababa, as the national
capital, was most affected. This situation underscored the huge social
problems that the Mengistu regime had neglected for far too long.
Ethiopia.
Drought and famine have been frequent occurrences in Ethiopia. In
fact, it was the imperial government's attempt to hide the effects of
the 1973-74 famine that aroused world indignation and eventually
contributed to Haile Selassie I's demise. Between 1984 and 1986, drought
and famine again hit Ethiopia and may have claimed as many as 1 million
lives and threatened nearly 8 million more. Even worse disaster was
averted when the international community mounted a massive effort to
airlift food and medical supplies to famine victims.
The government embarked on forced resettlement and villagization in
the mid-1980s as part of a national program to combat drought, avert
famine, and increase agricultural productivity. Resettlement, the
regime's long-term solution to the drought problem, involved the
permanent relocation of about 1.5 million people from the drought-prone
areas of the north to the south and southwest, where population was
relatively sparse and so-called virgin, arable land was plentiful.
Development specialists agreed on the need for resettlement of famine
victims in Ethiopia, but once the process had begun, there was
widespread criticism that resettlement was poorly planned and
haphazardly executed and thus increased the number of famine deaths.
Moreover, critics charged that the government forcibly relocated
peasants, in the process breaking up thousands of families. Thousands
also died of malaria and sleeping sickness because of poor sanitation
and inadequate health care in newly settled areas. A Paris-based
international doctors' organization, Doctors Without Borders (M�decins
sans Fronti�res), estimated that the forced resettlement and mass
deportation of peasants for purposes of resettlement endangered the
lives of 300,000 because of shortages of food, water, and medicine.
Other international organizations accused the Ethiopian government of
moving peasants to resettlement areas without adequate preparation of
such basic items as housing, water, seeds, and tools. Because of
widespread criticism, the Mengistu regime temporarily halted the
resettlement program in mid-1986 after 600,000 people had been
relocated, but the program resumed in November 1987.
Some sources voiced suspicion that the regime's primary motive in
resettlement was to depopulate the northern areas where it faced
insurgencies. Resettlement, the argument went, would reduce the
guerrillas' base of support. But this argument did not take into account
the strength of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Another Western objection to the resettlement
program related to the long-term government policy concerning peasant
farms. Western countries, on whose support the resettlement program
depended, did not want to sponsor a plan in which recruits labored for
communist-style collectives and state farms.
The villagization program, the regime's plan to transform rural
society, started in earnest in January 1985. If completed, the program might
have uprooted and relocated more than 30 million peasants over a
nine-year period. The regime's rationale for the program was that the
existing arrangement of dispersed settlements made it difficult to
provide social services and to use resources, especially land and water,
efficiently. The relocation of the peasants into larger villages (with
forty to 300 families, or 200 to 2,500 people) would give rural people
better access to amenities such as agricultural extension services,
schools, clinics, water, and electricity cooperative services and would
strengthen local security and the capacity for self-defense. Improved
economic and social services would promote more efficient use of land
and other natural resources and would lead to increased agricultural
production and a higher standard of living.
More specifically, the Ethiopian government perceived villagization
as a way to hasten agricultural collectivization. Most peasant farming
in Ethiopia was still based on a traditional smallholding system, which
produced 90 percent of farm output, employed about 80 percent of the
labor force, and accounted for 94 percent of cultivable land in 1985.
State farms and cooperative farms were responsible for only 4 percent
and 2 percent, respectively, of cultivated land.
By the end of 1988, more than 12 million people had been relocated in
villages in twelve of the fourteen administrative regions. The
exceptions were Eritrea and Tigray, where insurgents were waging war
against the regime. In 1989 the total reached about 13 million people.
Some regions implemented villagization more rapidly than others. In
Harerge, where the program began in 1985, more than 90 percent of the
population had been relocated to villages by early 1987, whereas in
Gonder and Welo the program was just beginning. In Ilubabor more than 1
million peasants had been relocated to 2,106 villages between December
1985 and March 1989. Nomadic peoples and shifting cultivators were not
affected by villagization.
The verdict on villagization was not favorable. Thousands of people
fled to avoid villagization; others died or lived in deplorable
conditions after being forcibly resettled. Moreover, the program's
impact on rural peasants and their social and economic well-being
remained to be assessed. There were indications that in the short term,
villagization may have further impoverished an already poor peasantry.
The services that were supposed to be delivered in new villages, such as
water, electricity, health care clinics, schools, transportation, and
agricultural extension services, were not being provided because the
government lacked the necessary resources. Villagers therefore resorted
to improvised facilities or reverted to old ways of doing things.
Villagization also reduced the productive capacity of the peasants by
depriving them of the opportunity for independent organization and
action. By increasing the distance peasants had to travel to work on
their land and graze their cattle, villagization wasted time and effort.
Denied immediate access to their fields, the peasants were also
prevented from guarding their crops from birds and other wild animals.
In the long run, analysts believed that villagization would be
counterproductive to a rational land use system and would be damaging
ecologically. Concentrating people in a central area would, in time,
intensify pressure on available water and grazing and lead to a decline
in soil fertility and to a poorer peasantry. The ecological damage could
be averted by the application of capital investment in infrastructure,
such as irrigation and land-intensive agricultural technology and strict
application of land rotation to avert overgrazing. But resources were
unavailable for such agricultural investment.
The most bitter critics of villagization, such as Survival
International, a London-based human rights organization, argued that the
Mengistu regime's noneconomic objective in villagization was control of
the population. Larger villages would facilitate the regime's control
over the population, cut rebels off from peasant support, and discourage
dissident movements. Indeed, some observers believed that the reason for
starting villagization in Harerge and Bale was nothing less than to
suppress support of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).
After the government's announcement of the new economic policy in
March 1990, peasants were given the freedom to join or abandon
cooperatives and to bring their produce to market. Hence, the Mengistu
regime abandoned one of the strong rationales for villagization and, in
effect, the whole program as well.
Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia, a predominantly rural society, the life of peasants is
rooted in the land, from which they eke out a meager existence. Through
the ages, they have faced frequent natural disasters, armed conflict,
and political repression, and in the process they have suffered hunger,
societal disruption, and death.
Periodic crop failures and losses of livestock often occur when
seasonal rains fail or when unusually heavy storms cause widespread
flooding. Pastoral nomads, who move seasonally in search of water and
grazing, often are trapped when drought inhibits rejuvenation of the
denuded grasslands, which their overgrazing produces. During such times,
a family's emergency food supplies diminish rapidly, and hunger and
starvation become commonplace until weather conditions improve and
livestock herds are subsequently rejuvenated. For centuries, this has
been the general pattern of life for most Ethiopian peasants; the
insurgent movements in Eritrea, Tigray, and the Ogaden have only served
to exacerbate the effects of these natural calamities.
A drought that began in 1969 continued as dry weather brought
disaster to the Sahel and swept eastward through the Horn of Africa. By
1973 the attendant famine had threatened the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Ethiopian nomads, who had to leave their home grounds and
struggle into Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan, seeking relief from
starvation. By the end of 1973, famine had claimed the lives of about
300,000 peasants of Tigray and Welo, and thousands more had sought
relief in Ethiopian towns and villages.
After assuming power in 1974, the military regime embarked on a
program to improve the condition of peasants, but famine and hunger
continued despite this effort, which was supplemented by substantial
foreign assistance. Moreover, the escalation of the military campaign
against the insurgent movements in Eritrea, Tigray, and the Ogaden
forced thousands of Ethiopians to flee into neighboring countries.
The 1977-78 Ogaden War and the 1978 drought in eastern Ethiopia
forced large numbers of people across the southeastern frontier into
Somalia. After the defeat of Somali forces in the Ogaden, the government
launched a counteroffensive against Eritrean guerrillas, and several
hundred thousand Ethiopians sought refuge in Sudan. Meanwhile, in the
Ogaden, international relief agencies estimated the number of refugees
entering Somali refugee camps at more than 1,000 a day. Most were women
and children, and many suffered from dehydration, malnutrition, and
diseases such as dysentery, malaria, and tuberculosis. There were more
than 700,000 reported refugees scattered in twenty-six makeshift camps,
where the absence of sanitation and inadequate medical assistance were
compounding the misery created by the food shortages.
By mid-1980 most observers considered the refugee crisis in the Horn
of Africa to be the world's worst. During the 1980s, the crisis
intensified, as 2.5 million people in the region abandoned their homes
and sought asylum in neighboring countries. Although drought, famine,
government repression, and conflict with insurgents were the principal
causes of large-scale refugee migrations, other factors such as
resettlement and villagization in Ethiopia and conflicts in southern
Sudan and northern Somalia also generated refugees. Sudan's war against
the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) forced many Sudanese into
Ethiopia. In northern Somalia, the Somali National Movement (SNM) had
been fighting Somali government forces, and in the process hundreds of
thousands of Somali fled into Ethiopia.
Several factors were responsible for the refugee crisis in Ethiopia.
The repressive Mengistu regime was ruthless in its treatment of both
real and imagined opponents. During the so-called Red
Terror of 1977-78, government security forces killed
thousands of students and urban professionals. Because human rights
violations characterized the government's policy toward dissidents,
there was a constant exodus of young and educated people. The regime
also found itself engaged in continuous civil war with one or more of
the insurgent groups, which had a devastating impact on the people, the
land, and the economy. The fighting not only generated hundreds of
thousands of refugees but also displaced thousands of other people from
their farms and villages. Forcible villagization and resettlement also
generated refugees. In Harerge alone, the forced imposition of
villagization prompted 33,000 people to flee to Somalia.
Famine also contributed to Ethiopia's refugee crises. The 1984-85
famine resulted in the death or displacement of hundreds of thousands of
people within Ethiopia and forced about 100,000 into Somalia, 10,000
into Djibouti, and more than 300,000 into Sudan.
In 1987 another drought threatened 5 million people in Eritrea and
Tigray. This time, however, the international community was better
prepared to get food to the affected areas in time to prevent starvation
and massive population movements. However, insurgents belonging to the
TPLF and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) attacked convoys
carrying food supplies or denied them access to rebel-held areas because
they believed the government would use relief convoys to cover the
movement of military supplies. The consequence was more deaths and more
refugees.
International relief agencies considered the 1990 famine more
critical because of the scarcity of rain since 1987. Mitsiwa was one of
the Eritrean ports where ships unloaded food and medical supplies for
distribution to famine victims in Eritrea. Following the EPLF's capture
of Mitsiwa in February 1990 and the government's bombing of the city in
an effort to dislodge the insurgents, the port was out of action. A few
months later, however, the EPLF and the Ethiopian government reached an
agreement that allowed the port to reopen. In addition, the government
lost control of Tigray in early 1989 and was reluctant to allow food
shipments to go through rebel-held territory until May 1990, when the
rebels, the government, the UN, and donor officials agreed to move grain
supplies from Dese to Tigray. Food could not be airlifted into Tigray
because fighting had destroyed the airport in Mekele, capital of Tigray.
Sudan was the only nation through which food shipments could come to
Tigray and Eritrea. Both the Relief Society of Tigray and the Eritrean
Relief Association--arms of the TPLF and EPLF, respectively--operated
food convoys from Sudan to Tigray and Eritrea. But poor road conditions
and the fact that convoys had to operate at night to avoid Ethiopian air
force attacks prevented adequate supplies from reaching affected
regions. Consequently, about 3 million people were threatened with death
and starvation in Eritrea and Tigray.
Disagreements persist concerning the number of Ethiopian refugees in
Somalia in the late 1980s. A UN survey estimated the number of Ethiopian
refugees in Somalia at 450,000 to 620,000. The United States Catholic
Relief Services (USCRS), however, estimated that about 410,000 refugees
had returned to Ethiopia, leaving about 430,000 in Somali refugee camps.
At the same time, more than 350,000 Somali of the Isaaq clan-family
fled northern Somalia for Ethiopia after mid-1988.
Most of these people remained in camps run by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Djibouti was home to about 45,000 Ethiopian refugees from the Ogaden
by late 1978. These people had fled after Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden
War. In 1983 the UNHCR began a repatriation program, which resulted in
the departure of 15,000 former refugees by mid-1984. But the 1984
drought in Ethiopia brought an additional influx of 10,000 refugees into
Djibouti. Slow, steady repatriation continued through 1989, by which
time there were only 1,500 Ethiopian refugees in Djibouti.
A large influx of Ethiopian refugees into Sudan occurred in 1978,
during the escalation of the conflict between Eritrean insurgents and
the Mengistu regime. The influx continued into 1983, when the refugees
numbered about 132,500. The 1984 drought and famine forced 160,000
refugees into Sudan in 1984 and more than 300,000 by April 1985. By June
1985, in anticipation of summer rains in Tigray, about 55,000 Tigray
left Sudan, followed by another 65,000 in 1986, but only a small
percentage of refugee Eritreans returned to Ethiopia.
Ethiopia also had been host to refugees from southern Sudan since
1983. As the conflict in southern Sudan between the SPLA and the
Sudanese regime intensified, more refugees fled into western Ethiopia,
where the Sudanese refugees numbered about 250,000 in early 1988 and
perhaps 400,000 by early 1991.
Ethiopia.
The most important Ethio-Semitic language is Amharic. It was the
empire's official language and is still widely used in government and in
the capital despite the Mengistu regime's changes in language policy.
Those speaking Amharic as a mother tongue numbered about 8 million in
1970, a little more than 30 percent of the population. A more accurate
count might show them to constitute a lesser proportion. The total
number of Amharic speakers, including those using Amharic as a second
language, may constitute as much as 50 percent of the population.
The Amhara are not a cohesive group, politically or otherwise. From
the perspective of many Amhara in the core area of Gonder, Gojam, and
western Welo, the Amhara of Shewa (who constituted the basic ruling
group under Menelik II and Haile Selassie) are not true descendants of
the northern Amhara and the Tigray and heirs to the ancient kingdom of
Aksum. Regional variations notwithstanding, the Amhara do not exhibit
the differences of religion and mode of livelihood characteristic of the
Oromo, for example, who constitute Ethiopia's largest linguistic
category. With a few exceptions, the Amhara are Ethiopian Orthodox
Christians and are highland plow agriculturists.
The Tigray (whose language is Tigrinya) constitute the second largest
category of Ethio-Semitic speakers. They made up about 14 percent of the
population in 1970. Like the Amhara, the Tigray are chiefly Ethiopian
Orthodox Christians, and most are plow agriculturists. Despite some
differences in dialect, Tigray believe, as anthropologist Dan Franz
Bauer has noted, "that they have a common tenuous kinship with
other Tigray regardless of their place of residence."
The number of persons speaking other Ethio-Semitic languages is
significantly smaller than the number who speak Amharic and Tigrinya.
Moreover, unlike the Amhara and Tigray, members of other Ethio-Semitic
groups do not share the Aksumite heritage and Orthodox Christianity, and
their traditional economic base is different.
Of the seven Ethio-Semitic languages found among the Gurage of
southern Shewa, four are single tongues and three are dialect clusters,
each encompassing four or five dialects. All correspond to what
anthropologist William A. Shack calls tribes, which, in turn, consist of
independent clan chiefdoms. Although most people accept the name Gurage,
they are likely to specify a tribal name in addition.
The traditional social organization and religion of the Gurage
resemble those of the neighboring East Cushitic-speaking Sidama and
related peoples. In some cases, Orthodox Christianity or Islam has
displaced the traditional religious system, in whole or in part. The
Gurage traditionally depended on the ensete plant (known locally as
false banana) rather than grain for their staple food and used the hoe
rather than the plow.
In 1970 there were more than 500,000 speakers of Gurage tongues, but
no single group numbered more than 100,000. Substantial numbers, perhaps
15 to 20 percent of all Gurage, live in urban centers, particularly
Addis Ababa, where they work at a range of manual tasks typically
avoided by the Amhara and the Tigray.
In 1970 a total of 117,000 persons were estimated to speak Tigre,
which is related to Tigrinya; but that figure was likely an
underestimate. The ten or so Eritrean groups or clusters of groups
speaking the language do not constitute an ethnic entity, although they
share an adherence to Islam. Locally, people traditionally used the term
Tigre to refer to what has been called the serf class, as opposed to the
noble class, in most Tigre-speaking groups.
Perhaps the most numerous of the Tigre-speaking peoples are the Beni
Amir, a largely pastoral people living in the semiarid region of the
north and west along the Sudanese border. A large number of the Beni
Amir also speak Beja, a North Cushitic language. Other groups are, in
part at least, cultivators, and some, who live along the Red Sea coast
and on nearby islands, gain some of their livelihood from fishing.
Except for the fact that the distinction between nobles and serfs
seems at one time to have been pervasive, little is known of early
social and political organization among these groups except for the Beni
Amir, who were organized in a tribal federation with a paramount chief.
The other groups seem to have been autonomous units.
The Hareri are of major historical importance, and their home was in
that part of Ethiopia once claimed by Somali irredentists. The Hareri
("people of the city") established the walled city of Harer as
early as the thirteenth century A.D. Harer was a major point from which
Islam spread to Somalia and then to Ethiopia.
The Argobba consist of two groups. Living on the hilly slopes of the
Great Rift Valley escarpment are small groups of Northern Argobba. The
Southern Argobba live southwest of Harer. Northern Argobba villages,
interspersed among Amharic- or Oromo-speaking communities, stretch from
an area at roughly the latitude of Addis Ababa to southeasternmost Welo.
Most Argobba speak either Amharic or Oromo in addition to their native
tongue.
Ethiopia - Cushitic Language Groups
The Oromo, called Galla by the Amhara, constitute the largest and
most ubiquitous of the East Cushitic-speaking peoples. Oromo live in
many regions as a result of expansion from their homeland in the central
southern highlands beginning in the sixteenth century. Although they
share a common origin and a dialectically varied language, Oromo groups
changed in a variety of ways with respect to economic base, social and
political organization, and religion as they adapted to different
physical and sociopolitical environments and economic opportunities.
Even more uncertain than estimates of the Amhara population are
estimates for the Oromo. The problem stems largely from the imperial
government's attempts to downplay the country's ethnic diversity.
Government estimates put the number of Oromo speakers at about 7 million
in 1970--about 28 percent of the total population of Ethiopia. By
contrast, the OLF claimed there were 18 million Oromo in 1978, well over
half of a total population roughly estimated that year at 31 million.
Anthropologist P.T.W. Baxter, taking into account the lack of a census
(until 1984) and the political biases affecting estimates, asserted that
the Oromo were almost certainly the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia,
making up somewhere between a third and just over half its population. A
widely accepted estimate in the late 1980s was 40 percent.
The Oromo provide an example of the difficulties of specifying the
boundaries and nature of an ethnic group. Some Oromo groups, such as the
Borana, remain pastoralists. But others, the great majority of the
people, have become plow cultivators or are engaged in mixed farming. A
few groups, particularly the pastoralists, retain significant features
of the traditional mode of social and political organization marked by
generation and age-set
systems and the absence of a centralized political
structure; others, such as those who established kingdoms along the Gib�
River, developed hierarchial systems. Cutting across the range of
economic and political patterns are variations in religious belief and
practice. Again, the pastoralists usually adhere to the indigenous
system. Other groups, particularly those in Shewa and Welega, have been
influenced by Orthodox Christianity, and still others have been
converted to Islam. Here and there, missionary Protestantism has had
minor successes. Moreover, the Oromo sections and subsections have a
long history of conflict. Sometimes this conflict has been the outcome
of competition for land; sometimes it has resulted from strife between
those allied with Amhara and those resisting the expansion of the
empire. Some Oromo adapted to Amhara dominance, the growth of towns, and
other changes by learning Amharic and achieving a place in the empire's
political and economic order. But they had not thereby become Amhara or
lost their sense of being Oromo.
In the far south live several groups speaking languages of the Oromic
branch of Lowland East Cushitic and in many cases sharing features of
Oromo culture. Most have been cultivators or mixed farmers, and some
have developed peculiar features, such as the highlands-dwelling Konso,
who live in walled communities of roughly 1,500 persons. All these
groups are small and are often subdivided. With an estimated population
of 60,000 in 1970, the Konso are the largest of these groups.
Three other Lowland East Cushitic groups--the Somali, Afar, and
Saho--share a pastoral tradition (although some sections of each group
have been cultivators for some time), commitments of varying intensity
to Islam, and social structures composed of autonomous units defined as descent
groups. In addition, all have a history of adverse
relations with the empire's dominant Orthodox Christian groups and with
Ethiopian governments in general.
The largest of the three groups are the Somali, estimated to number
nearly 900,000 in 1970. Many Somali clans and lineages living
predominantly in Ethiopia have close links with or are members of such
groups in Somalia. The number of Somali in Ethiopia in the late
1980s--given the Ogaden War and the movement of refugees--was uncertain.
Somali society is divided into groups of varying genealogical depth
based on putative or traceable common patrilineal descent. The largest
of these groups is the clan-family, which is in turn divided into clans, which are
further divided into lineages and sublineages. The clan-family has no concrete political, economic,
or social functions. The other groups do, however, and these functions
often entail political and economic competition and sometimes conflict
between parallel social units.
The government estimated that the Afar (called Denakil or Adal by
their neighbors) numbered no more than 363,000 in 1970. Despite their
relatively small numbers, they were of some importance because of their
location between the highlands and the Red Sea, their antipathy to
Ethiopian rule, and the quasi-autonomy of a part of the Afar under the
sultan of Aussa before the 1974 revolution.
Except for several petty centralized states under sultans or shaykhs,
the Afar are fragmented among tribes, subtribes, and still smaller
divisions and are characterized by a distinction between noble and
commoner groups, about which little is known. Most Afar are pastoralists
but are restricted in their nomadism by the need to stay close to
permanent wells in extremely arid country. A number of them in the
former sultan of Aussa's territory have long been settled cultivators in
the lower Awash River valley, although the imperial government initiated
a program to settle others along the middle Awash.
Saho is a linguistic rather than an ethnic category. The groups
speaking the language include elements from the Afar, the Tigray, Tigre
speakers, and others, including some Arabs. Almost all are pastoralists.
Most are Muslims, but several groups--those heavily influenced by the
Tigray--are Ethiopian Orthodox Christians.
Little is known about the political and social systems of the ten or
so groups making up the total estimated Saho- speaking population of
120,000, but each group seems to be divided into segments. None was ever
marked by the noble- serf distinction characteristic of Tigre speakers
to their north, and all were said to elect their chiefs.
The speakers of the Highland East Cushitic languages (sometimes
called the Sidamo languages after a version of the name of their largest
component) numbered more than 2 million in 1970. The two largest groups
were the Sidama (857,000) and the Hadya-Libido speakers (700,000).
Kembata- Timbaro-Alaba speakers and the Deresa made up the rest. Each of
these two groups numbered about 250,000 in 1970. As the hyphenated names
suggest, two or more autonomous groups speaking dialects of the same
language have been grouped together. In fact, most Sidama, although
calling themselves by a single name in some contexts, traditionally are
divided into a number of localized and formerly politically autonomous
patrilineal clans, each under a chief.
The Sidama and other Highland East Cushitic speakers are cultivators
of ensete and of coffee as a cash crop. In areas below 1,500 meters in
elevation, however, the Sidama keep cattle.
The Sidama and other groups have retained their traditional religious
systems, although some have been responsive to Protestant missionaries.
Others, such as the Alaba, the Hadya, and the Timbaro, have accepted
Islam. Only the Kembata are converts to Orthodox Christianity.
There are six groups of Central Cushitic (Agew) speakers, five of
which live in the central highlands surrounded by Amhara. The Bilen in
the extreme northern highlands form an enclave between the Tigray and
the Tigre speakers. Agew- speaking groups total between 100,000 and
125,000 persons. They are the remnants of a population thought to have
been the inhabitants of much of the central and northern highlands when
Semitic-speaking migrants arrived millennia ago to begin the process
that led to the formation of such groups as the Tigray and the Amhara.
It is likely that Agew speakers provided much of the basic stock from
which the Amhara and Tigray were drawn.
The largest of the Agew-speaking groups are the Awi (whose language
is Awngi), estimated to number 50,000 in 1970. The linguistically
related but geographically separate Kunfel numbered no more than 2,000.
The Awi and the Qimant, numbering about 17,000, retain their traditional
religious system; but the Kunfel and the Xamtanga, totaling about 5,000,
are apparently Orthodox Christians. The Bilen have been much influenced
by Islam, and many have begun to speak the Tigre of their Islamic
neighbors as a second tongue.
A special case is the Beta Israel (their own name; others call them
Falasha or Kayla), who numbered about 20,000 in 1989, most of whom
emigrated to Israel in late 1984 and in May 1991. Perhaps preceding the
arrival of Christianity in the fourth century A.D., a group of Agew
speakers adopted a form of Judaism, although their organization and many
of their religious practices resemble those of their Orthodox Christian
neighbors. The precise origins and nature of the Judaic influence are
matters of dispute. Most Beta Israel speak Amharic as a first language.
Agew occurs in their liturgy, but the words are not understood.
Except for the Beta Israel, all Agew-speaking groups are plow
agriculturists (the Kunfel augment their livelihood by hunting). The
Beta Israel had been cultivators until deprived of their right to hold
land after a major conflict with the Amhara and their refusal to convert
to Christianity in the fifteenth century. They then became craftsmen,
although many later returned to the land as tenants.
The sole group speaking a Northern Cushitic tongue is the Beja, a
Muslim pastoral group that numbered about 20,000 in 1970. (Many more
live in neighboring Sudan.) Their language is influenced by Arabic, and
the Beja have come to claim Arab descent since their conversion to
Islam. Like many of the other nomadic pastoralists in the area, they
traditionally were segmented into tribes and smaller units, based on
actual or putative descent from a common male ancestor and characterized
by considerable autonomy, although federated under a paramount chief.
Ethiopia - Omotic Language Groups
Between the lakes of southern Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley and the
Omo River (in a few cases west of the Omo) live many groups that speak
languages of the Omotic family. As many as eighty groups have been
distinguished, but various sets of them speak dialects of the same
language. Together they were estimated to number 1,278,100 in 1970. Of
these, the Welamo (often called Wolayta) are the most numerous,
estimated to number more than 500,000 in 1970. Gemu-Gofa is a language
spoken by perhaps forty autonomous groups, estimated at 295,000 in 1970
in the Gemu highlands. Kefa-Mocha, spoken by an estimated 170,000, is
the language of two separate groups (one, commonly called Mocha, calls
itself Shekatcho). Of the two, Kefa is the larger.
The relatively limited area in which they live, the diversity of
their languages, and other linguistic considerations suggest that the
ancestors of the speakers of Omotic languages have been in place for
many millennia. Omotic speakers have been influenced linguistically and
otherwise by Nilo-Saharan groups to the west and by East Cushitic groups
surrounding them. As a result of the early formation of ancestral
Omotic-speaking groups, external influences, and the demands of varied
physical and social environments, the Omotic speakers have developed not
only linguistic diversity but also substantial differences in other
respects. Most Omotic-speaking peoples, for example, are hoe
cultivators, relying on the cultivation of ensete at higher altitudes
and of grains below approximately 1,500 meters. They also practice
animal husbandry. Many in the Gemu highlands are artisans, principally
weavers. Their craftwork has become attractive as the demand for their
work in Addis Ababa and other urban centers has increased. In the
capital these people are commonly called Dorze, although that is the
name of just one of their groups.
Except for the Kefa--long influenced by Orthodox Christianity--and a
small number of Muslims, Omotic speakers have retained their indigenous
religious systems, although a few have been influenced by European
missionaries. Most of these groups originally had chiefs or kings. Among
the exceptions are larger entities such as the Welamo and the Kefa, both
characterized by centralized political systems that exacted tribute from
neighboring peoples.
Ethiopia - Nilo-Saharan Language Groups
Ethnicity in Ethiopia is an enormously complex concept. No ethnic
entity has been untouched by others. Groups in existence in the
twentieth century are biological and social amalgams of several
preexisting entities. The ingredients are often discernible only by
inference, particularly if the mixing took place long ago. Nonetheless,
such mixing led to the formation of groups that think of themselves and
are considered by others as different. For instance, in the
prerevolutionary period there were thousands of non-Amhara who had
acquired the wherewithal to approximate the lifestyle of wealthy Amhara
and had in fact gained recognition as Amhara. Such mixing has continued,
and the boundaries of ethnic groups also continue to change.
Interethnic relations in prerevolutionary Ethiopia did not conform to
a single model and were complex because of the nature of Amhara contact
with other groups and the internal social and economic dynamics of the
groups. Each group reacted differently to Amhara dominance. What makes
this analysis even more complex is that the Amhara themselves do not
constitute a cohesive group. Indeed, the tendency to see Ethiopia before
(and, by some accounts, after) the revolution as dominated by Amhara has
obscured the complexity of interethnic relations.
The Amhara are found predominantly in Gojam, Gonder, in parts of Welo
such as Lasta and Wag, and in parts of Shewa such as Menz. Amhara from
one area view those from other areas as different, and there is a long
history of conflicts among Amhara nobles aspiring to be kings or
kingmakers.
Intraprovincial and interprovincial conflict between Amhara nobles
and their followers was quite common. Some aspects of intra-Amhara
friction may be seen in the relations of Shewan Amhara to other Amhara
and to other Ethiopians. Shewan Amharic speakers are on the southern
periphery of the territory occupied by the Amhara. They made their
presence felt in much of the Shewa region relatively late, except in
areas such as Menz, which had always been Amhara. Thus, the Shewans over
the centuries developed a culture and a society that emerged from Oromo,
Amhara, and perhaps other groups. Whereas the southern people considered
Shewan Orthodox Christians as Amhara, people from older Amhara areas
such as Gojam and Gonder thought of such persons as Shewans or sometimes
even as Oromo.
During the imperial regime, Amhara dominance led to the adoption of
Amharic as the language of government, commerce, and education. Other
forms of Amhara dominance occurred in local government, where Amhara
served as representatives of the central government or became
landholders.
Reaction to the Amhara varied even within individual ethnic groups.
Some resisted the Amhara bitterly, while others aided them. In its most
extreme form, resistance to Amhara dominance resulted in enduring
separatist movements, particularly in Eritrea, Tigray, and the Ogaden.
The separatist movement in Eritrea reflects a somewhat different
historical experience from that of other areas of Ethiopia. Despite
Eritrea's seeming unity, ethnic and religious differences among
Eritreans abounded. For example, the Kunema, a Nilo-Saharan-speaking
people who formed an enclave among Eritrea's Muslims and Christians and
who have long been treated as inferior by some groups that make up the
Eritrean independence movement, historically have provided an island of
support for the central government.
Perhaps the only region to which the Amhara did not bring their sense
of superiority was Tigray, home of the people who lay claim to the
Aksumite heritage. The Amhara did not come to Tigray as receivers of
land grants, and government administrators were often Tigrayan
themselves. Tigray perspectives on the Amhara were, however, influenced
negatively by a number of historical factors. For example, the son of
the only emperor of Tigray origin to have ruled Ethiopia, Yohannis IV
(reigned 1872-89), was deprived of the throne by Menelik II, an Amhara.
In 1943 the imperial regime brutally repressed a Tigray rebellion called
the Weyane.
Ethiopia's Ogaden region, inhabited primarily by ethnic Somali, was
the scene of a series of Ethiopian-Somali struggles in 1964, 1977-78,
and intermittently after that until 1987. Somalia supported
self-determination for Ogaden Somali. Although Somalia and Ethiopia
signed a joint communiqu� in 1988 to end hostilities, Mogadishu refused
to abandon its claim to the Ogaden. Moreover, in 1989 and 1990, the
Ogaden region was home to about 350,000 Isaaq Somali from northern
Somalia who had escaped persecution by the regime of Mahammad Siad
Barre.
In April 1976, the PMAC promulgated its Program for the National
Democratic Revolution (PNDR), which accepted the notions of
self-determination for nationalities and regional autonomy. In
compliance with the program, the PMAC created the Institute for the
Study of Ethiopian Nationalities in 1983 to develop administrative and
political proposals to accommodate all the country's major
nationalities. As a result of the institute's findings, the government
expressed a desire to abolish Ethiopia's fourteen administrative regions
and to create thirty regions, of which five-- Eritrea, Tigray, Aseb,
Dire Dawa, and the Ogaden--were to be autonomous. Eritrean and Tigrayan
leaders denounced the plan as nothing more than an attempt to perpetuate
government control of Eritrea and Tigray. Their military campaigns to
wrest control of the two regions from the Mengistu regime eventually
succeeded.
The PMAC undermined the patterns of ethnic relations prevailing in
imperial Ethiopia and eliminated the basis for Amhara dominance.
However, postrevolutionary Ethiopia continued to exhibit ethnic tension.
Traits based on ethnicity and religion are deeply ingrained and are not
susceptible to elimination by ideology.
Ethiopia - Social Relations
Ethiopia's ethnic and cultural diversity has affected social
relations. Most lowland people are geographically and socially isolated
from the highland population. Moreover, rural inhabitants, who
constitute about 89 percent of the total population, generally live
their lives without coming into contact with outsiders. Exposure to
other ethnic groups usually occurs by means of relatively limited
contact with administrators, tax collectors, and retail merchants. By
contrast, the towns are a mosaic of social and ethnic diversity. Since
the early 1940s, towns fulfilling administrative and economic functions
have proliferated. In Addis Ababa, it is common for families and groups
from disparate social and economic classes to live side by side. Only in
recent years, with unprecedented urbanization, have upper-income
residential zones emerged. Smaller urban centers have tended to be
fairly homogeneous in ethnic and religious makeup. But with increasing
urbanization, towns are expected to be the scene of increased
interaction among different ethnic groups and social classes.
Traditionally, among the most important factors in social relations
in Ethiopia has been religion. Ethiopian emperors nurtured the country's identity
with Christianity, although there were at least as many Muslims as
Christians in the country. Although the imperial regime did not impose
Orthodox Christianity on Muslims and pagans, very few non-Christians
held high positions in government and the military. In many cases,
Muslims gravitated to commerce and trade, occupations relatively
untainted by religious discrimination.
The Mengistu regime downplayed the role of religion in the state's
life and disestablished the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Moreover, the
1987 constitution guaranteed freedom of religion. In principle, all
religions had equal status in relation to the state.
Muslims live throughout Ethiopia, but large concentrations can be
found in Bale, Eritrea, Harerge, and Welo. Muslims also belong to many
ethnic groups, a factor that may prevent them from exerting political
influence commensurate with their numbers. Centuries of conflict between
the Christian kingdom and its Muslim antagonists, recent apprehensions
about Arab nationalism, and Arab support for Eritrean separatism and
Somali irredentism all continue to perpetuate Ethiopian historical fears
of "Islamic encirclement." Such historically rooted religious
antagonism has persisted in creating a social barrier between Christians
and Muslims.
Those who profess traditional religious beliefs are interspersed
among Christians and Muslims. Such groups include the Sidama, the
Gurage, the Oromo of Arsi and Borana, and the Nilotic groups along the
Ethiopia-Sudan border. They have no political influence and are scorned
socially by Muslims and Christians.
The existence of more than seventy languages has been another barrier
to social communication and national integration. The imperial
government, recognizing the importance of a national language, adopted
Amharic as the official tongue. The use of Amharic became mandatory in
government, education, radiobroadcasts, and newspapers. But the
government's promotion of Amharic entailed the suppression of other
major languages, which aroused opposition and accusations of cultural
imperialism. Language policy changed under the Mengistu regime, which
attempted to reverse the trend by dropping Amharic as a requirement in
schools for non-Amharic speakers. The new policy recognized several
languages widely spoken in specific areas--such as Oromo, Tigrinya,
Welamo, and Somali--for use in schools at the lower levels. Addis Ababa also
authorized the use of the five languages mentioned above, as well as
Afar, in radiobroadcasts and literacy campaigns. Nevertheless, Amharic
remained the language of government, and anyone who aspired to a
national role had to learn to speak and write Amharic.
The most preferred occupations traditionally have been in government,
the military, the clergy, and farming, with commerce and trade
considered less important and consequently usually left to Muslims and
foreigners. All major Ethiopian ethnic units include hereditary groups
of artisans and craftsmen. Their occupations historically have been held
in low esteem by the dominant groups. Prior to 1974, artisans and
craftsmen could not own land or hold political office and could not
participate in local meetings or assemblies. Dominant groups in their
respective areas generally treated them as subjects.
Social status in Ethiopia during the centuries of imperial rule
depended on one's landholdings, which provided the basis for class
formation and social stratification. The emperor, the nobility, and
landlords occupied the social hierarchy's highest positions. Under them
were smallholding farmers, followed by millions of landless peasants who
cultivated rented land. In the twentieth century, most of the southern
landlord class consisted of Christian settlers from the north, whereas
the tenants were mostly nonChristians and natives of the area. Thus,
ethnic and cultural differences exacerbated class distinctions, which,
in turn, adversely affected social relations.
With the dissolution of the imperial system and the nationalization
of urban and rural land, social stratification and community relations
based on landholding largely disappeared. The military regime wanted to
create a classless society, but the social hierarchy based on
landholdings simply was replaced by one based on political power and
influence. National and regional party members, government ministers,
military officers, and senior civil servants had enormous political sway
and enjoyed the economic perquisites that the nobility and landlords
once possessed.
After Ethiopia's liberation from Italian occupation in 1941,
education played an important role in social relations by creating a
"new nobility" and a middle class whose position and status
were largely independent of landownership. This new group consisted of
educated children of the nobility, commoners who had achieved
distinction for their loyalty to the emperor, and others with advanced
education whose skills were needed to modernize the bureaucracy and
military. The postwar education system, the new government bureaucracy,
and the modern sector of the economy also encouraged the growth of a
middle class employed in the public and private sectors. Members of the
small educated class that filled the bureaucracy and the professions
during the postwar imperial period by and large retained their positions
under Mengistu, although many left the country because of disenchantment
with his regime.
The educated group was generally less attached to religion and
tradition than was the rest of Ethiopian society. Members' education,
income, occupation, and urban life-style likewise set them apart. They
had more in common with educated people from other ethnic groups and
frequently married across ethnic lines, although rarely across religious
lines. Nevertheless, in the last decade or so before the 1974
revolution, some younger and better-educated non-Amhara expressed
continued, even heightened, ethnic awareness through membership in
urban-based self-help associations, which the Mengistu regime later
banned. Although this educated group played a vital role in the
emperor's downfall, it had little influence on the military government.
Many of the PMAC's policies were perceived as inimical to the
interests of major ethnic and class groups. Despite the regime's
tentative efforts--such as land reform--to defuse some longstanding
grievances, opposition based on ethnic, religious, and class interests
continued.
Ethiopia - Social System
Political scientist John Markakis has observed, "The social
structure of traditional Amhara-Tigray society [represented] the classic
trinity of noble, priest, and peasant. These groups [were] distinguished
not only through the division of labor, distinct social status, and a
clear awareness of such distinctions expressed and justified in
ideological terms, but also through differences in their relationships
to the only means of production: land." In the northern highlands,
land was usually held by the kin group, the state, and the church and,
through each of these, by individuals. Private ownership in the Western
sense came later and was abolished in 1975.
Anthropologist Allan Hoben is considered to have made the most
thorough analysis of Amhara land tenure and its relation to social
structure. According to his findings, the cognatic
descent group, comprising men and women believed to
be descended from a common ancestor through both males and females,
ultimately held a block of land. As in cognatic descent systems
elsewhere, men and women could belong to several such landholding
groups. The descent group and each of its segments had a representative
who looked after its collective interests. This agent, the respected
elders, and politically influential members of the group or its segments
acted in disputes over rights to land. The land was called rist land, and the rights held or claimed in it were rist
rights. An Amhara had claims not to a specific piece of land but to a
portion of it administered by the descent group or a segment of this
group. The person holding such rights was called ristegna. In principle,
rist rights guaranteed security of tenure. Litigation over such rights
was common, however. Most northern highland peasants held at least some
rist land, but some members of pariah groups and others were tenants.
Peasants were subject to claims for taxes and labor from those above
them, including the church. The common term for peasant, derived from
the word for tribute, was gebbar. Taxes and fees were comprehensive,
multiple, and burdensome. In addition, the peasant had to provide labor
to a hierarchy of officials for a variety of tasks. It was only after
World War II that administrative and fiscal reforms ended many of these
exactions.
The state exercised another set of rights over land, including land
held in rist. The emperor was the ultimate and often immediate arbiter
of such rights, called gult rights, and the recipient was called gultegna. There was
considerable variation in the content and duration of the gult rights
bestowed on any person.
Gult rights were the typical form of compensation for an official
until the government instituted salaries in the period after World War
II. Many gult grants were for life, or were hereditary, and did not
depend on the performance of official duties. The grants served to bind
members of noble families and the local gentry to the emperor.
The emperor also granted hereditary possession (rist gult) of state
land to members of the higher nobility or the royal family. Peasants on
such land became tenants of the grantee and paid rent in addition to the
usual taxes and fees. Lieutenants who shared in the tribute represented
the absentee landlords.
Those who benefited from the allocation of gult rights included
members of the royal family (masafint, or princes), the nobility
(makuannent), the local gentry, low-level administrators, and persons
with local influence. Until the twentieth century, the chief duties of
the makuannent were administrative and military. Membership in the
makuannent was not fixed, and local gentry who proved able and loyal
often assumed higher office and were elevated to the nobility. It was
possible for a commoner to become a noble and for the son of a
noble--even one with a hereditary title--to lose status and wealth
unless he demonstrated military or other capabilities. Although there
was a gap in living standards between peasant and noble, cultural
differences were not profound. Consequently, the Amhara and Tigray
lacked the notion of a hereditary class of nobles. Although it is
possible to divide the Amhara and Tigray populations of the late
nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries in terms of rank, social
status, power, and wealth, those who fell into various categories did
not necessarily constitute distinct strata.
The pattern of land allocation in the southern territories
incorporated into the empire by Menelik II differed in important ways
from the pattern in the north. Moreover, the consequences of allocation
and the administrative regime imposed by Menelik II and Haile Selassie
varied, depending on the way in which particular ethnic groups or
regions became subject to Ethiopian rule, on the nature of the
preexisting sociopolitical structure, and on the territory's economic
appeal.
Supposedly, the government divided conquered land in the south on the
one-third (siso) principle, by which two-thirds went to the state and
the remainder to the indigenous population. In fact, the proportion of
the land taken by the state ranged from virtually none to more than
two-thirds. In areas such as Jima, which had capitulated to Menelik II
without resistance, the state took no occupied land, although it later
took over unoccupied land and granted much of it to leading imperial
officials. Other northerners, attracted by the coffee-growing potential
of the Jima area, bought land in that region. In areas inhabited by
nomads, all the land was state land, little was granted, and the
pastoralists used it as before.
The government allocated state-held land to a variety of claimants.
The emperor retained a substantial portion of the most fertile land.
Churches also received large amounts of land in the south as northern
governors implemented the imperial policy of establishing Orthodox
Christian churches in conquered territory and as northern clergy came in
numbers to serve them. Each church received samon grants, according to
which the church held the rights to tribute in perpetuity, and the
tribute from those working the land went solely to the support of the
church (or local monastery). No part of it went through the secular
hierarchy to the emperor. The nobility, including the leaders of
Menelik's conquering armies (many of whom became governors in the
south), received rist gult rights over large areas occupied by peasants.
Rist gult holders, secure in their rights, allocated land rights of
various kinds to kinsmen and retainers. The government granted rist gult
rights over smaller parcels of land to officials at any level for loyal
service. Remaining land was divided between the indigenous population
and traditional leaders ( balabats ), who acquired some of the best land. People who had
been on the land thus became tenants (gebbars).
Peasants from the north went south as soldiers and settlers. If the
soldiers and their heirs continued to perform military or other service,
they received land that remained in the family. If they arrived as
settlers, the government gave them small parcels of land or allowed them
to buy land from the state at low cost. Such land, unencumbered by the
residual rights of a kin group but requiring the payment of state taxes,
was thus held in an arrangement much like that applied to freehold land.
Generally, settlers were armed and were expected to support local
officials with force.
Most of the southern population consisted of indigenous peoples,
largely deprived of the rights they had held under local systems. They,
like Amhara and Tigray peasants, were called gebbars, but they held no
rist land and therefore had little security of tenure. The situation of
the southern gebbars depended on the rights granted by the state over
the land on which they lived. Those working land granted to a minor
official paid tribute through him. If the land reverted to state
control, the gebbar became a tributary of the state. As salaries for
officials became the rule after World War II, the land that formerly
served as compensation in lieu of salary was granted in permanent
possession (in effect, became freehold land) to those holding contingent
rights or to others. In these circumstances, the gebbars became tenants.
The basis of southern social stratification was, as in the north, the
allocation of political office and rights in land by the emperor. The
method of allocating rights in land and of appointing government
officials in the south gave rise to a structure of status, power, and
wealth that differed from the arrangement in the north and from the
earlier forms of sociopolitical organization in the area. Those
appointed as government officials in the south were northerners--mainly
Amhara, Tigray, and educated Oromo--virtually all of whom were Orthodox
Christians who spoke Amharic. This meant that social stratification
coincided with ethnicity. However, the path to social mobility and
higher status, as in the north, was education and migration to urban
areas.
In 1966, under growing domestic pressure for land reform, the
imperial government abolished rist gult in the north and south and siso
gult in the south. Under the new system, the gultegna and the gebbar
paid taxes to the state. In effect, this established rights of private
ownership. The abolition of rist gult left the northern Amhara and
Tigray peasant a rist holder, still dependent on the cognatic descent
group to verify his rights to rist land. But at least he was formally
freed of obligations to the gult holder.
Typically, the landholders and many northern provincial officials
came from families with at least several generations of status, wealth,
and power in the province-- situations they owed not to Menelik II or to
Haile Selassie but to earlier emperors or to great provincial lords.
These nobles had some claim to the peasants' loyalty, inasmuch as all
belonged to the same ethnic group and shared the same values. Peasants
often saw attacks on the northern nobility as challenges to the entire
system of which they were a part, including their right to rist land.
By contrast, whether or not they were descended from the older
nobility, southern landholders were more dependent on the central
government for their status and power. They were confronted with an
ethnically different peasantry and lacked a base in the culture and
society of the locality in which they held land.
In 1975 the revolution succeeded in eliminating the nobility and
landlord classes. Those individual group members who avoided being
killed, exiled, or politically isolated were able to do so because they
had in some way already modified or surrendered their rights and
privileges.
Land reform affected huge numbers of people throughout Ethiopia.
However, there were regional differences in its execution. Peasant
associations carried out land redistribution in the south, motivated not
only by economic need but also by their antipathy toward the landlords.
In the north, the government preserved rist tenure, and the peasant
associations concerned themselves mainly with litigation over rist
rights. Moreover, northern peasants were not driven by the ethnic and
class hatred characteristic of southern peasants.
The 1975 Peasant Associations Organization and Consolidation
Proclamation granted local self-government to peasant associations.
Subsequently, peasant associations established judicial tribunals to
deal with certain criminal and civil cases, including those involving
violations of association regulations. Armed units, known as peasant
defense squads, enforced decisions. Additionally, peasant associations
had economic powers, including the right to establish service
cooperatives as a prelude to collective ownership (although there was
little peasant enthusiasm for the latter). The revolutionary government
also established a hierarchy of administrative and development
committees in districts, regions, and subregions to coordinate the work
of the bodies at each administrative level. The Workers' Party of
Ethiopia (WPE) later supplemented the work of these committees. Only a
few officials spoke for peasants at the district and subregional levels,
and rarely, if at all, were peasants represented in regional
organizations, where civilians and military members of the central
government were in control.
Ethiopia - Urban Society
After World War II, towns, commerce, and bureaucracy gradually became
more significant in Ethiopia. Except for Addis Ababa and some Red Sea
ports, towns were small, and urbanization had proceeded more slowly than
in many other African countries. City and town life had not been a
feature of Ethiopian society, and trade was not a full-time occupation
for Ethiopians except for itinerant Muslims and Arabized peoples on the
Red Sea coast. Manufacturing had arrived only recently, and the role of
Ethiopians, except as unskilled laborers, was minimal. Ownership and
management, with relatively few exceptions, were in the hands of
foreigners.
Most Ethiopians who entered into occupations not associated with the
land or with traditional methods of administration worked for the
central government, which had expanded to bring Ethiopia under the
emperor's control, to provide essential services, and to generate
economic development. During the 1940s, Ethiopia's few educated persons,
who usually came from families of the nobility and gentry, joined the
government.
Beginning in the 1950s, relatively younger Ethiopians with higher
education developed hopes and expectations for democratic institutions.
Still small in number, perhaps 7,000 to 8,000 by 1970, they were more
ethnically varied in origin than the older educated group, although
Amhara and Tigray were still represented disproportionately (as they
were even among secondary school graduates). These would-be reformers
were frequently frustrated by the older ways of the senior officials,
who were dependent on Haile Selassie and beholden to him. Nevertheless,
sustained opposition to the regime did not occur, largely because even
middle- and lower-level government employees were better off than the
peasants, small traders, and some of the gentry.
Small traders and craftsmen, below educated government workers in
income and status, had little influence on the government, which tended
to encourage larger-scale capitalintensive ventures typically requiring
foreign investment and management. Although an increasing number of
Christians were involved in commercial activities, small traders
remained largely a Muslim group. Skilled craftsmen who were not of the
traditional pariah groups often belonged to small ethnic groups, such as
the weavers (often called Dorze) of Gamo Gofa.
At the bottom of the urban social scale were workers of varied ethnic
origins, generally unskilled in a labor market crowded with unskilled
workers ready to replace them. Neither government policy, the weak labor
unions, nor the condition of the labor market gave them social or
political leverage. By the late 1960s, inflation and a lack of jobs for
university and secondary school graduates intensified disgruntlement.
Urban-based agitation by students, labor, and the military eventually
toppled the imperial regime.
Those who had served in senior positions in the imperial government
and the military establishment were dismissed, imprisoned, executed, or
they fled the country. The survivors of the old social structure were
younger persons in government service: bureaucrats, teachers, and
technicians. Some benefited from the nationalization of private
enterprises and expansion of the government apparatus, filling posts
held by senior officials or foreign specialists before the revolution.
But this group was excluded from power, and some became militant
opponents of the new regime's radical policies.
The position of the middle class--traders and artisans-- varied.
Generally, the status of Muslim traders rose after the new regime
disestablished the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. As economic conditions
worsened and consumer goods became scarce, however, traders became
scapegoats and subject to violent attacks.
Notwithstanding allusions to the proletariat's revolutionary role,
the urban working class--mainly in Addis Ababa and its environs--gained
neither status nor power. The military government replaced the
Confederation of Ethiopian Labor Unions (CELU) with the All-Ethiopia
Trade Union (AETU) when the CELU leadership started opposing the
direction of the revolution. The AETU focused its activities on
supporting the government policy of emphasizing production rather than
on advancing worker rights. The AETU--unlike the CELU--was a hierarchy
rather than a confederation; unions at the base accepted policy
decisions made at higher levels. In the next few years, the government
had difficulty enforcing this policy. Deteriorating economic conditions
caused strikes and demonstrations. In addition, violence often broke out
between workers and government officials.
The urban equivalents of the peasant associations were the kebeles. Initially, mid- and lowerlevel bureaucrats were elected to posts
in these associations, but the military government soon purged them for
opposing the revolutionary regime. New laws excluded from elective
office for one year those who had owned rental property and members of
their households. Thus, not only were the wealthy excluded from
participation, but also many middle-class investors who had built and
rented low-cost housing and who were far from rich were excluded as
well. This exclusion also deprived many students and other young people
of a role in the kebeles. Those who worked full time away from the
neighborhood tended to be unwilling to take on kebele positions. Partly
by default and partly with the PMAC's encouragement, elections in 1976
filled kebeles posts with (in the words of John Markakis and Nega Ayele)
"persons of dubious character, indeterminate occupation, busybodies
and opportunists of all sorts . . . . Militia units [attached to the
urban associations] charged with local security mustered the perennially
unemployed, the shiftless and hangers-on, young toughs and delinquents,
who were instantly transformed into revolutionary proletarian
fighters." These individuals perpetrated crimes against people they
disliked or disagreed with.
The kebeles engaged in some of the revolution's most brutal
bloodletting. Increasing criticism eventually forced the regime to
restrain them. After the populace recognized the PMAC's permanence, more
people participated in kebele administration. By 1990 the kebeles were
part of the grassroots WPE organization.
Ethiopia - The Role of Women
There have been few studies concerning women in Ethiopia, but many
observers have commented on the physical hardship that Ethiopian women
experience throughout their lives. Such hardship involves carrying loads
over long distances, grinding corn manually, working in the homestead,
raising children, and cooking. Ethiopian women traditionally have
suffered sociocultural and economic discrimination and have had fewer
opportunities than men for personal growth, education, and employment.
Even the civil code affirmed the woman's inferior position, and such
rights as ownership of property and inheritance varied from one ethnic
group to another.
As in other traditional societies, a woman's worth is measured in
terms of her role as a mother and wife. Over 85 percent of Ethiopian
women reside in rural areas, where peasant families are engaged
primarily in subsistence agriculture. Rural women are integrated into
the rural economy, which is basically labor intensive and which exacts a
heavy physical toll on all, including children. The revolution had
little impact on the lives of rural women. Land reform did not change
their subordinate status, which was based on deep-rooted traditional
values and beliefs. An improvement in economic conditions would improve
the standard of living of women, but real change would require a
transformation of the attitudes of governments and men regarding women.
There have been some changes for women in urban areas, where
education, health care, and employment outside the home have become more
available. Although a few women with higher education have found
professional employment, most hold low-paying jobs. About 40 percent of
employed women in urban areas worked in the service sector, mainly in
hotels, restaurants, and bars, according to a 1976 government survey.
Employment in production and related areas (such as textiles and food
processing) accounted for 25 percent of the female work force, followed
by sales, which accounted for about 11 percent. The survey also showed
that women factory workers in Addis Ababa earned about a quarter of the
wages men earned for the same type of work. These differences existed
despite a 1975 proclamation stipulating equal pay for equal work for men
and women.
Following the revolution, women made some gains in economic and
political areas. The Revolutionary Ethiopia Women's Association (REWA),
which claimed a membership of over 5 million, took an active part in
educating women. It encouraged the creation of women's organizations in
factories, local associations, and in the civil service. Some women
participated in local organizations and in peasant associations and
kebeles. However, the role of women was limited at the national level.
In 1984, for example, the government selected only one woman as a full
member of the Central Committee of the WPE. Of the 2,000 delegates who
attended the WPE's inaugural congress in 1984, only 6 percent were
women.
On a more positive note, the Mengistu regime could claim success in
increasing literacy among women. The enrollment of women in primary and
secondary schools increased from about 32 percent in 1974/75 to 39
percent in 1985/86, although the rate of enrollment of urban women far
exceeded the rate for rural women.
Ethiopia - Religion
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church's headquarters was in Addis Ababa. The
boundaries of the dioceses, each under a bishop, followed provincial
boundaries; a patriarch (abun) headed the church. The ultimate authority
in matters of faith was the Episcopal Synod. In addition, the Church
Council, a consultative body that included clergy and laity, reviewed
and drafted administrative policy.
Beginning in 1950, the choice of the abun passed from the Coptic
Church of Egypt in Alexandria to the Episcopal Synod in Addis Ababa.
When Abuna Tewoflos was ousted by the government in 1976, the church
announced that nominees for patriarch would be chosen from a pool of
bishops and monks-- archbishops were disqualified--and that the
successful candidate would be chosen on the basis of a vote by clergy
and laity. The new abun was a fifty-eight-year-old monk who took the
name of Tekla Haimanot, after a fourteenth-century Ethiopian saint.
From the Christian peasant's point of view, the important church
figures are the local clergy. The priest has the most significant role.
An estimated 10 to 20 percent of adult male Amhara and Tigray were
priests in the 1960s--a not extraordinary figure, considering that there
were 17,000 to 18,000 churches and that the celebration of the Eucharist
required the participation of at least two priests and three deacons,
and frequently included more. Large churches had as many as 100 priests;
one was said to have 500.
There are several categories of clergy, collectively referred to as
the kahinat (priests, deacons, and some monks) and the debteras (priests
who have lost their ordination because they are no longer ritually pure,
or individuals who have chosen not to enter the priesthood). A boy
between the ages of seven and ten who wishes to become a deacon joins a
church school and lives with his teacher--a priest or debtera who has
achieved a specified level of learning--and fellow students near a
church. After about four years of study, the diocesan bishop ordains him
a deacon.
After three or four years of service and additional study, a deacon
can apply to be ordained a priest. Before doing so, he has to commit
himself to celibacy or else get married. Divorce and remarriage or
adultery result in a loss of ritual purity and loss of one's ordination.
A priest's chief duty is to celebrate the Eucharist, a task to which
he is assigned for a fixed period of weeks or months each year. He also
officiates at baptisms and funeral services and attends the feasts
(provided by laymen) associated with these and other events. His second
important task is to act as confessor, usually by arrangement with
specific families.
Most priests come from the peasantry, and their education is limited
to what they acquire during their training for the diaconate and in the
relatively short period thereafter. They are, however, ranked according
to their learning, and some acquire far more religious knowledge than
others.
Debteras often have a wider range of learning and skills than what is
required for a priest. Debteras act as choristers, poets, herbalists,
astrologers, fortune-tellers, and scribes (for those who cannot read).
Some monks are laymen, usually widowers, who have devoted themselves
to a pious life. Other monks undertake a celibate life while young and
commit themselves to advanced religious education. Both kinds of monks
might lead a hermit's life, but many educated monks are associated with
the great monastic centers, which traditionally were the sources of
doctrinal innovation or dispute that had sometimes riven the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church. Nuns are relatively few, usually older women who
perform largely domestic tasks in the churches.
Ethiopia - Faith and Practice
The faith and practice of most Orthodox Christians combine elements
from Monophysite Christianity as it has developed in Ethiopia over the
centuries and from a non-Christian heritage rejected by more educated
church members but usually shared by the ordinary priest. According to
Monophysite doctrine, Christ is a divine aspect of the trinitarian God.
Broadly, the Christian elements are God (in Amharic, Egziabher), the
angels, and the saints. A hierarchy of angelic messengers and saints
conveys the prayers of the faithful to God and carries out the divine
will. When an Ethiopian Christian is in difficulty, he or she appeals to
these angels and saints as well as to God. In more formal and regular
rituals, priests communicate on behalf of the community, and only
priests may enter the inner sanctum of the usually circular or octagonal
church where the ark (tabot) dedicated to the church's patron saint is
housed. On important religious holidays, the ark is carried on the head
of a priest and escorted in procession outside the church. The ark, not
the church, is consecrated. Only those who feel pure, have fasted
regularly, and have generally conducted themselves properly may enter
the middle ring to take communion. At many services, most parish members
remain in the outer ring, where debteras sing hymns and dance.
Weekly services constitute only a small part of an Ethiopian Orthodox
Christian's religious observance. Several holy days require prolonged
services, singing and dancing, and feasting. An important religious
requirement, however, is the keeping of fast days. Only the clergy and
the very devout maintain the full schedule of fasts, comprising 250
days, but the laity is expected to fast 165 days per year, including
every Wednesday and Friday and the two months that include Lent and the
Easter season.
In addition to standard holy days, most Christians observe many
saint's days. A man might give a small feast on his personal saint's
day. The local voluntary association (called the maheber) connected with
each church honors its patron saint with a special service and a feast
two or three times a year.
Belief in the existence of active spirits--many malevolent, some
benevolent--is widespread among Ethiopians, whether Christian, Muslim,
or pagan. The spirits called zar can be male or female and have a
variety of personality traits. Many peasants believe they can prevent
misfortune by propitiating the zar.
The protective adbar spirits belong to the community rather than to
the individual or family. The female adbar is thought to protect the
community from disease, misfortune, and poverty, while the male adbar is
said to prevent fighting, feuds, and war and to bring good harvests.
People normally pay tribute to the adbars in the form of honey, grains,
and butter.
Myths connected with the evil eye (buda) vary, but most people
believe that the power rests with members of lowly occupational groups
who interact with Amhara communities but are not part of them. To
prevent the effects of the evil eye, people wear amulets or invoke God's
name. Because one can never be sure of the source of illness or
misfortune, the peasant has recourse to wizards who can make diagnoses
and specify cures. Debteras also make amulets and charms designed to
ward off satanic creatures.
The belief system, Christian and other, of peasant and priest was
consonant with the prerevolutionary social order in its stress on
hierarchy and order. The long-range effects on this belief system of a
Marxist-Leninist regime that ostensibly intended to destroy the old
social order were difficult to evaluate in mid-1991. Even though the
regime introduced some change in the organization of the church and
clergy, it was not likely that the regime had succeeded in significantly
modifying the beliefs of ordinary Christians.
Ethiopia - Islam
Basic Teachings of Islam
Islam is a system of religious beliefs and an allencompassing way of
life. Muslims believe that God (Allah) revealed to the Prophet Muhammad
the rules governing society and the proper conduct of society's members.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the individual to live in a manner
prescribed by the revealed law and incumbent on the community to build
the perfect human society on earth according to holy injunctions. Islam
recognizes no distinctions between church and state. The distinction
between religious and secular law is a recent development that reflects
the more pronounced role of the state in society and of Western economic
and cultural penetration. Religion has a greater impact on daily life in
Muslim countries than it has had in the largely Christian West since the
Middle Ages.
Islam came to Ethiopia by way of the Arabian Peninsula, where in A.D.
610, Muhammad--a merchant of the Hashimite branch of the ruling Quraysh
tribe in the Arabian town of Mecca--began to preach the first of a
series of revelations he said had been granted him by God through the
angel Gabriel. A fervent monotheist, Muhammad denounced the polytheism
of his fellow Meccans. Because the town's economy was based in part on a
thriving pilgrimage business to the shrine called the Kaaba and to
numerous other pagan religious sites in the area, Muhammad's censure
earned him the enmity of the town's leaders. In 622 he and a group of
followers accepted an invitation to settle in the town of Yathrib, later
known as Medina (the city), because it was the center of Muhammad's
activities. The move, or hijra, known in the West as the hegira, marks
the beginning of the Islamic era and of Islam as a force in history;
indeed, the Muslim calendar begins in 622. In Medina, Muhammad continued
to preach, and he eventually defeated his detractors in battle. He
consolidated the temporal and the spiritual leadership in his person
before his death in 632. After Muhammad's death, his followers compiled
those of his words regarded as coming directly from God into the Quran,
the holy scriptures of Islam. Others of his sayings and teachings,
recalled by those who had known him, became the hadith. The precedent of
Muhammad's personal behavior is called the sunna. Together, these works
form a comprehensive guide to the spiritual, ethical, and social life of
the orthodox Sunni Muslim.
The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam, which set forth
the acts necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith. These are the
recitation of the shahada ("There is no god but God [Allah], and
Muhammad is his prophet."), salat (daily prayer), zakat
(almsgiving), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimage). The believer is to
pray in a prescribed manner after purification through ritual ablutions
each day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall.
Prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany the prayers, which
the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca. Whenever possible, men pray
in congregation at the mosque with an imam, or prayer leader, and on
Fridays they make a special effort to do so. The Friday noon prayers
provide the occasion for weekly sermons by religious leaders. Women may
also attend public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from
the men, although women usually pray at home. A special functionary, the
muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the
appropriate hour. Those out of earshot determine the time by the
position of the sun.
The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a period of
obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's receipt of God's
revelation. Throughout the month, all but the sick and weak, pregnant or
lactating women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and
young children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual
intercourse during the daylight hours. Those adults who are excused are
obliged to endure an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity. A
festive meal breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of feasting
and celebration. The pious well-to-do usually perform little or no work
during this period, and some businesses close for all or part of the
day. Because the months of the lunar year revolve through the solar
year, Ramadan falls at various seasons in different years. A
considerable test of discipline at any time of the year, a fast that
falls in summertime imposes severe hardship on those who must do
physical work.
All Muslims, at least once in their lifetimes, are strongly
encouraged to make the hajj to Mecca to participate in special rites
held there during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Muhammad
instituted this requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom, to emphasize
sites associated with God and Abraham (Ibrahim), considered the founder
of monotheism and father of the Arabs through his son Ismail.
Other tenets of the Muslim faith include the jihad (holy war), and
the requirement to do good works and to avoid all evil thoughts, words,
and deeds. In addition, Muslims agree on certain basic principles of
faith based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: there is one God,
who is a unitary divine being, in contrast to the trinitarian belief of
Christians; Muhammad, the last of a line of prophets beginning with
Abraham and including Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa), was chosen by God to
present His message to humanity; and there is to be a general
resurrection on the last, or judgment, day.
During his lifetime, Muhammad was spiritual and temporal leader of
the Muslim community. Religious and secular law merged, and all Muslims
traditionally have been subject to sharia, or religious law. A
comprehensive legal system, sharia developed gradually through the first
four centuries of the Islamic era, primarily through the accretion of
interpretations and precedents set by various judges and scholars.
After Muhammad's death, Muslim community leaders chose Abu Bakr, the
Prophet's father-in-law and one of his earliest followers, to succeed
him. At that time, some persons favored Ali ibn Abu Talib, Muhammad's
cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatima, but Ali and his
supporters (the Shiat Ali, or Party of Ali) eventually recognized the
community's choice. The next two caliphs (successors)--Umar, who
succeeded in A.D. 634, and Uthman, who took power in 644--enjoyed the
recognition of the entire community. When Ali finally succeeded to the
caliphate in 656, Muawiyah, governor of Syria, rebelled in the name of
his murdered kinsman Uthman. After the ensuing civil war, Ali moved his
capital to the area of present-day Iraq, where he was murdered shortly
thereafter.
Ali's death ended the last of the so-called four orthodox caliphates
and the period in which the entire community of Islam recognized a
single caliph. Muawiyah proclaimed himself caliph from Damascus. The
Shiat Ali refused to recognize him or his line, the Umayyad caliphs, and
withdrew in the great schism to establish the dissident sect, known as
the Shia, who supported the claims of Ali's line to the caliphate based
on descent from the Prophet. The larger faction, the Sunnis, adhered to
the position that the caliph must be elected, and over the centuries
they have represented themselves as the orthodox branch.
Early in Islam's history the Sufism movement emerged. It stressed the
possibility of emotional closeness to God and mystical knowledge of God
in contrast to the intellectual and legalistic emphasis of orthodox
Sunni theology. By the twelfth century, this tendency had taken a number
of forms. Orders, each emphasizing specific disciplines (ways) of
achieving that closeness and knowledge, were organized. Disdained by
orthodox Islamic theologians, Sufi orders nevertheless became an
integral part of Islam, although their importance varied regionally.
Ethiopia - Islam - Local Character of Belief and Practice
Until the early 1900s, formal education was confined to a system of
religious instruction organized and presented under the aegis of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Church schools prepared individuals for the
clergy and for other religious duties and positions. In the process,
these schools also provided religious education to the children of the
nobility and to the sons of limited numbers of tenant farmers and
servants associated with elite families. Such schools mainly served
Amhara and Tigray inhabitants of the central highlands. Toward the end
of the nineteenth century, Menelik II had also permitted the
establishment of European missionary schools. At the same time, Islamic
schools provided some education for a small part of the Muslim
population.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the education system's
failure to meet the needs of people involved in statecraft, diplomacy,
commerce, and industry led to the introduction of government-sponsored
secular education. The first public school was established in Addis
Ababa in 1907, and a year later a primary school opened in Harer.
Foreign languages, elementary mathematics, and rudimentary science were
taught in French to a limited number of students, along with Amharic and
religious subjects.
In 1925 the government adopted a plan to expand secular education,
but ten years later there were only 8,000 students enrolled in twenty
public schools. A few students also studied abroad on government
scholarships. Schools closed during the Italian occupation of 1936-41.
After the restoration of Ethiopian independence, schools reopened, but
the system faced shortages of teachers, textbooks, and facilities. The
government recruited foreign teachers for primary and secondary schools
to offset the teacher shortage. By 1952 a total of 60,000 students were
enrolled in 400 primary schools, eleven secondary schools, and three
institutions offering college-level courses. In the 1960s, 310 mission
and privately operated schools with an enrollment of 52,000 supplemented
the country's public school system.
In May 1961, Ethiopia hosted the United Nations-sponsored Conference
of African States on the Development of Education. Among other things,
the conference highlighted Ethiopia's educational deficiencies. The
Ethiopian education system, especially in primary and secondary
education, was ranked the bottom among African nations. There were
school and teacher shortages, a high dropout rate, and low overall
attendance rates (about 10 percent among all school-age children in the
country), especially among females, nonChristians , and rural children.
Embarrassed by this record, the Ministry of Education developed a new
education policy, which was in effect until 1974. Designed in
conjunction with the objectives of the government's second and third
fiveyear development plans, extending from 1962 to 1973, the policy gave
precedence to the establishment of technical training schools, although
academic education also was expanded. Curriculum revisions introduced a
mix of academic and nonacademic subjects. But Amharic became the
language of instruction for the entire primary cycle, which handicapped
any child who had a different primary language.
Under the revised system, the two-year junior secondary schools
offered a general academic program for individuals who wished to
continue their education. A number of vocational subjects prepared
others to enter technical or vocational schools. Some practical
experience in the use of tools was provided, which qualified graduates
as semiskilled workers. The curriculum in the four-year senior secondary
schools prepared students for higher education in Ethiopia or abroad.
Successful completion of the cycle also qualified some for specialized
agricultural or industrial institutes. Others were qualified for
intermediate positions in the civil service, the armed forces, or
private enterprises.
There were two institutions of higher education: Haile Selassie I
University in Addis Ababa, formed by imperial charter in 1961, and the
private University of Asmera, founded by a Roman Catholic religious
order based in Italy.
Between 1961 and 1971, the government expanded the public school
system more than fourfold, and it declared universal primary education a
long-range objective. In 1971 there were 1,300 primary and secondary
schools and 13,000 teachers, and enrollment had reached 600,000. In
addition, many families sent their children to schools operated by
missionary groups and private agencies. But the system suffered from a
shortage of qualified personnel, a lack of funds, and overcrowded
facilities. Often financed with foreign aid, school construction usually
proceeded faster than the training and certification of teachers.
Moreover, many teachers did not stay long in the profession. Sources
such as the United States Peace Corps and teachers from the National
Service program (university students who taught for one year after
completing their junior year) served only as stopgaps. In addition, most
schools were in the major towns. Crowded and understaffed, those schools
in small towns and rural areas provided a poor education.
The inadequacies of public education before the mid-1970s resulted
partly from the school financing system. To finance primary education,
the government levied a special tax on agricultural land. Local boards
of education supervised the disbursement of tax receipts. (The central
government financed secondary and higher education.) The system's
inequities fostered the expansion of primary education in wealthier
regions rather than in poorer ones. Moreover, urban inhabitants, who did
not have to pay the tax but who were predominantly represented in the
schools, sent their children at the expense of the taxpaying rural
landowners and poor peasants. The government attempted to rectify this
imbalance in 1970 by imposing an education tax on urban landowners and a
2 percent tax on the personal income of urban residents. But the
Ministry of Finance treated the funds collected as part of the general
revenue and never spent the money for its intended purpose.
Despite the fact that money spent on education increased from 10
percent of total government expenditures in 1968 to 20 percent in the
early 1970s, funding remained inadequate. Expenditure on education was
only 1.4 to 3 percent of the gross national product (GNP) between 1968 and 1974, compared with 2.5 to 6
percent for other African countries during the same period.
Under the pressure of growing public dissatisfaction and mounting
student activism in the university and secondary schools, the imperial
government initiated a comprehensive study of the education system.
Completed in July 1972, the Education Sector Review (ESR) recommended
attaining universal primary education as quickly and inexpensively as
possible, ruralizing the curricula through the inclusion of informal
training, equalizing educational opportunities, and relating the entire
system to the national development process.
The ESR criticized the education system's focus on preparing students
for the next level of academic study and on the completion of rigid
qualifying examinations. Also criticized was the government's lack of
concern for the young people who dropped out before learning marketable
skills, a situation that contributed to unemployment. The report stated
that, by contrast, "The recommended system would provide a
self-contained program at each level that would be terminal for most
students."
The report was not published until February 1974, which gave time for
rumors to generate opposition among students, parents, and the teachers'
union to the ESR recommendations. Most resented what they considered the
removal of education from its elite position. Many teachers also feared
salary reductions. Strikes and widespread disturbances ensued, and the
education crisis became a contributing factor in the imperial regime's
fall later that year.
Ethiopia - Primary and Secondary Education
After the overthrow of imperial rule, the provisional military
government dismantled the feudal socioeconomic structure through a
series of reforms that also affected educational development. By early
1975, the government had closed Haile Selassie I University and all
senior secondary schools and had deployed some 60,000 students and
teachers to rural areas to participate in the government's Development
Through Cooperation Campaign (commonly referred to as zemecha ). The campaign's stated purposes were to promote land
reform and improve agricultural production, health, and local
administration and to teach peasants about the new political and social
order.
In 1975 the new regime nationalized all private schools, except
church-affiliated ones, and made them part of the public school system.
Additionally, the government reorganized Haile Selassie I University and
renamed it Addis Ababa University. It also initiated reforms of the
education system based partly on ESR recommendations and partly on the
military regime's socialist ideology. However, no meaningful education
occurred (except at the primary level) from 1975 to 1978 because of the
social turmoil, which pitted the regime against numerous opposition
forces, including students.
Beginning in 1975, a new education policy emphasized improving
learning opportunities in the rural areas as a means of increasing
economic productivity. In the mid-1980s, the education system was still
based on a structure of primary, secondary, and higher education levels,
much as it was during the imperial regime. However, the government's
objective was to establish an eight-year unified education system at the
primary level. Preliminary to implementing this program, officials
tested a new curriculum in seventy pilot schools. This curriculum
emphasized expanded opportunities for nonacademic training. The new
approach also decentralized control and operation of primary and
secondary schools to the subregional level, where the curriculum
addressed local requirements. In each case, committees drawn from the
peasant associations and kebeles and augmented by at least one teacher
and one student over the age of sixteen from each school administered
the public schools. Students used free textbooks in local languages. In
late 1978, the government expanded the program to include nine
languages, and it adopted plans to add five others.
There were also changes in the distribution and number of schools and
the size and composition of the student body. The military regime worked
toward a more even distribution of schools by concentrating its efforts
on small towns and rural areas that had been neglected during the
imperial regime. With technical assistance from the Ministry of
Education, individual communities performed all primary school
construction. In large part because of such community involvement, the
number of primary schools grew from 3,196 in 1974/75 to 7,900 in 1985/86
(the latest years for which figures were available in mid-1991), an
average increase of 428 schools annually. The number of primary schools increased significantly
in all regions except three, including Eritrea and Tigray, where there
was a decline because of continuing insurgencies. In Addis Ababa, the
number of primary schools declined because of the closure or absorption
of nongovernment schools, especially religious ones, into the government
system.
Primary school enrollment increased from about 957,300 in 1974/75 to
nearly 2,450,000 in 1985/86. There were still variations among regions
in the number of students enrolled and a disparity in the enrollment of
boys and girls. Nevertheless, while the enrollment of boys more than
doubled, that of girls more than tripled. Urban areas had a higher ratio of children enrolled in
schools, as well as a higher proportion of female students, compared
with rural areas.
The number of junior secondary schools almost doubled, with fourfold
increases in Gojam, Kefa, and Welega. Most junior secondary schools were
attached to primary schools.
The number of senior secondary schools almost doubled as well, with
fourfold increases in Arsi, Bale, Gojam, Gonder, and Welo. The
prerevolutionary distribution of schools had shown a concentration in
the urban areas of a few administrative regions. In 1974/75 about 55
percent of senior secondary schools were in Eritrea and Shewa, including
Addis Ababa. In 1985/86 the figure was down to 40 percent. Although
there were significantly fewer girls enrolled at the secondary level,
the proportion of females in the school system at all levels and in all
regions increased from about 32 percent in 1974/75 to 39 percent in
1985/86.
The number of teachers also increased, especially in senior secondary
schools. However, this increase had not kept pace with student
enrollment. The student-teacher ratio went from forty-four to one in
1975 to fifty-four to one in 1983 in primary schools and also increased
from thirty-five to one in 1975 to forty-four to one in 1983 in
secondary schools.
Although the government achieved impressive improvements in primary
and secondary education, prospects for universal education in the near
future were not bright. In 1985/86, the latest year for which government
statistics were available, enrollment in the country's primary, junior
secondary, and senior secondary schools totaled 3.1 million students, up
from the nearly 785,000 enrolled a decade earlier. Only about 2.5
million (42 percent) of the 6 million primary school-age children were
enrolled in school in 1985/86. Junior secondary school enrollments
(grades seven and eight) amounted to 363,000, while at the secondary
school level (grades nine through twelve), only 292,385 out of 5.5
million, or 5.3 percent, attended school. In addition, prospects for
continued study for most primary school graduates were slim. In 1985/86
there was only one junior secondary school for every eight primary
schools and only one senior secondary school for every four junior
secondary schools. There were many primary school students for whom
space would not be available and who therefore would most likely end up
on the job market, where work already was scarce for people with limited
educations.
School shortages also resulted in crowding, a situation aggravated by
the rural-urban influx of the late 1980s. Most schools operated on a
morning and afternoon shift system, particularly in urban areas. A
teacher shortage exacerbated the problems created by crowded classrooms.
In addition to these problems were those of the destruction and looting
of educational facilities as a result of fighting in northern regions.
By 1990/91 destruction was especially severe in Eritrea, Tigray, and
Gonder, but looting of schools was reported in other parts of the
country as well.
Ethiopia - Higher and Vocational Education
In 1977 the revolutionary regime issued Proclamation No. 109, which
created the Commission for Higher Education. This document also outlined
the main objectives of higher education institutions as follows: to
train individuals for high-level positions in accordance with the
national plan of development and to provide qualified medium-level
personnel to meet the immediate needs of the economy; to improve the
quality of education, strengthen and expand tertiary-level institutions,
and establish new research and training centers; and to contribute to a
better standard of living among the masses by developing science,
technology, the arts, and literature.
Additionally, Addis Ababa reoriented institutions of higher education
to reflect the new regime's objectives and modified admission criteria
to benefit students from small towns and rural areas. But the government
also assigned many students to specialize in certain fields, which
denied them the opportunity to decide on careers of their choosing.
Higher education expanded modestly in the period after 1975. The
College of Agriculture at Alemaya, which was part of Addis Ababa
University, was granted independent university status in 1985. A
postgraduate studies program was established in 1978, which had an
enrollment of 246 students in 1982/83, of whom 15 were women. Graduate
programs were offered in several fields, including engineering, natural
science, agriculture, the social sciences, and medicine. Several
research institutes supported these institutions of higher education.
Addis Ababa University also provided an evening extension program
offering courses in many fields.
Other diploma-granting independent colleges trained middlelevel
manpower in several fields. These included the College of Teacher
Education, the Junior College of Commerce, and the Municipal Technical
College, all in Addis Ababa. There were also junior colleges of
agriculture in Ambo and Jima, the Institute of Animal Health Assistants
in Debre Zeyit, and the Institute of Health Sciences in Jima.
Altogether, there were approximately twelve colleges or universities in
the country in the early 1990s, with intense competition among students
for admission.
Enrollment in higher education grew from 4,500 in 1970 to more than
18,400 in 1985/86, of whom nearly 11 percent were women. But enrollment
was low, considering the size of the population. Space limitations at
the colleges and universities caused the government to raise admission
standards. To narrow the gap somewhat, the number of students sent
abroad on scholarships and fellowships grew from an annual average of
433 during 1969-73 to about 1,200 during 1978-82.
The number of Ethiopians on teaching staffs also grew. The faculty of
Addis Ababa University increased from 437 in 1970 to 1,296 in 1983, with
a corresponding increase in Ethiopian faculty from 48 percent to 74
percent of this total during the same period.
There was also more emphasis on the creation of technical and
vocational schools, most of which were operated by the government. The
Ministry of Education operated or supervised nine such schools scattered
around the country. These schools had an enrollment of more than 4,200
in 1985/86, and their graduates were in great demand by industries. With
Soviet assistance, Ethiopia established its first polytechnic institute,
in Bahir Dar, in the 1960s. It trained personnel in agromechanics,
industrial chemistry, electricity, and textile and metal-working
technology. In addition, a system of general polytechnic education had
been introduced into the senior secondary school curriculum so that
those who did not continue their education still could venture into the
skilled job market.
The government also introduced vocational training to upgrade peasant
skills. The peasant training centers, operated by the Ministry of
Agriculture, provided training in vocational trades related to
agriculture for periods ranging from three weeks to six months. The
country had twelve such centers, which trained more than 200,000 farmers
from 1974 to 1988.
Ethiopia - Literacy
Among the revolutionary regime's few successes was the national
literacy campaign. The literacy rate, under 10 percent during the
imperial regime, increased to about 63 percent by 1984, according to
government figures. Others sources, however, estimated it at around 37
percent. In 1990/91 an adult literacy rate of just over 60 percent was
still being reported in government as well as in some international
reports. As with the 1984 data, it several wise to exercise caution with
regard to the latest figure. As some observers pointed out, defining
just what the term "literacy" means presented a problem; in
addition, the military government's desire to report as high a literacy
rate as possible had to be taken into account.
The national literacy campaign began in early 1975 when the
government mobilized more than 60,000 students and teachers, sending
them all over the country for two-year terms of service. This experience
was crucial to the creation in 1979 of the National Literacy Campaign
Coordinating Committee (NLCCC) and a nationwide effort to raise literacy
levels. The government organized the campaign in rounds, which began in
urban centers and spread outward to the remote parts of the country up
to Round 12. Officials originally conducted the literacy training in
five languages: Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Welamo, and Somali. The number
of languages was later expanded to fifteen, which represented about 93
percent of the population. By the end of Round 12, in the late 1980s,
about 17 million people had been registered, of whom 12 million had
passed the literacy test. Women represented about half of those
enrolled.
According to government sources, about 1.5 million people eventually
worked in the campaign. They included students, civil servants,
teachers, military personnel, housewives, and members of religious
groups, all of whom, it was claimed, offered their services freely.
Adult literacy classes used primary and secondary school facilities in
many areas. Officials distributed more than 22 million reading booklets
for beginners and more than 9 million texts for postliteracy
participants. The Ministry of Education also stocked reading centers
with appropriate texts. These books focused on topics such as
agriculture, health, and basic technology. To consolidate the gains from
the literacy campaign, the government offered follow-up courses for
participants up to grade four, after which they could enroll in the
regular school system. In addition, national newspapers included regular
columns for new readers. The literacy campaign received international
acclaim when the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) awarded Ethiopia the International Reading
Association Literacy Prize in 1980.
Ethiopia - Foreign Educational Assistance
The main cause of many of Ethiopia's health problems is the relative
isolation of large segments of the population from the modern sector.
Additionally, widespread illiteracy prevents the dissemination of
information on modern health practices. A shortage of trained personnel
and insufficient funding also hampers the equitable distribution of
health services. Moreover, most health institutions were concentrated in
urban centers prior to 1974 and were concerned with curative rather than
preventive medicine.
Western medicine came to Ethiopia during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century with the arrival of missionary doctors, nurses, and
midwives. But there was little progress on measures to cope with the
acute and endemic diseases that debilitated large segments of the
population until the government established its Ministry of Public
Health in 1948. The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the United States Agency for International
Development (AID) provided technical and financial assistance to
eliminate the sources of health problems.
In addition to establishing hospitals, health centers, and outpatient
clinics, the government initiated programs to train Ethiopian health
care personnel so that they could supplement the private institutions
that existed in a few major urban centers. The few government campaigns
that exhorted the people to cooperate in the fight against disease and
unhealthful living conditions were mainly directed at the urban
population.
By the mid-1970s, the number of modern medical facilities had
increased relatively slowly--particularly in rural areas, where at least
80 percent of the people still did not have access to techniques or
services that would improve health conditions. Forty-six percent of the hospital beds were
concentrated in Addis Ababa, Asmera, Dire Dawa, and Harer. In the
absence of modern medical services, the rural population continued to
rely on traditional folk medicine. According to official statistics, in
1983/84 there were 546 physicians in the country to serve a population
of 42 million, a ratio of roughly one physician per 77,000 people, one
of the worst ratios in the world. Less than 40 percent of the population
was within reach of modern health services.
As in most developing countries in the early 1990s, Ethiopia's main
health problems were communicable diseases caused by poor sanitation and
malnutrition and exacerbated by the shortage of trained manpower and
health facilities. Mortality and morbidity data were based primarily on
health facility records, which may not reflect the real incidence of
disease in the population. According to such records, the leading causes
of hospital deaths were dysentery and gastroenteritis (11 percent),
tuberculosis (11 percent), pneumonia (11 percent), malnutrition and
anemia (7 percent), liver diseases including hepatitis (6 percent),
tetanus (3 percent), and malaria (3 percent). The leading causes of
outpatient morbidity in children under age five were upper respiratory
illnesses, diarrhea, eye infections including trachoma, skin infections,
malnutrition, and fevers. Nearly 60 percent of childhood morbidity was
preventable. The leading causes of adult morbidity were dysentery and
gastrointestinal infections, malaria, parasitic worms, skin and eye
diseases, venereal diseases, rheumatism, malnutrition, fevers, upper
respiratory tract infections, and tuberculosis. These diseases were
endemic and quite widespread, reflecting the fact that Ethiopians had no
access to modern health care.
Tuberculosis still affected much of the population despite efforts to
immunize as many people as possible. Venereal diseases, particularly
syphilis and gonorrhea, were prevalent in towns and cities, where
prostitution contributed to the problem. The high prevalence of worms
and other intestinal parasites indicated poor sanitary facilities and
education and the fact that potable water was available to less than 14
percent of the population. Tapeworm infection was common because of the
popular practice of eating raw or partially cooked meat.
Schistosomiasis, leprosy, and yellow fever were serious health
hazards in certain regions of the country. Schistosomiasis, a disease
caused by a parasite transmitted from snails to humans through the
medium of water, occurred mainly in the northern part of the highlands,
in the western lowlands, and in Eritrea and Harerge. Leprosy was common
in Harerge and Gojam and in areas bordering Sudan and Kenya. The
incidence of typhoid, whooping cough, rabies, cholera, and other
diseases had diminished in the 1970s because of school immunization
programs, but serious outbreaks still plagued many rural areas. Frequent
famine made health conditions even worse.
Smallpox has been stamped out in Ethiopia, the last outbreak having
occurred among the nomadic population in the late 1970s. Malaria, which
is endemic in 70 percent of the country, was once a scourge in areas
below 1,500 meters elevation. Its threat had declined considerably as a
result of government efforts supported by WHO and AID, but occasional
seasonal outbreaks were common. The most recent occurrence was in 1989,
and the outbreak was largely the result of heavy rain, unusually high
temperatures, and the settling of peasants in new locations. There was
also a report of a meningitis epidemic in southern and western Ethiopia
in 1989, even though the government had taken preventive measures by
vaccinating 1.6 million people. The logistics involved in reaching the
70 percent of Ethiopians who lived more than three days' walk from a
health center with refrigerated vaccines and penicillin prevented the
medical authorities from arresting the epidemic.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was a growing problem in
Ethiopia. In 1985 the Ministry of Health reported the country's first
AIDS case. In subsequent years, the government sponsored numerous AIDS
studies and surveys. For example, in 1988 the country's AIDS Control and
Prevention Office conducted a study in twenty-four towns and discovered
that an average of 17 percent of the people in each town tested positive
for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the precursor of full-blown
AIDS. A similar survey in Addis Ababa showed that 24 percent tested
positive.
In 1990 Mengistu Mihret, head of the Surveillance and Research
Coordination Department of the AIDS Control and Prevention Office,
indicated that AIDS was spreading more rapidly in heavily traveled
areas. According to the Ministry of Health, there were two AIDS patients
in the country in 1986, seventeen in 1987, eighty-five in 1988, 188 in
1989, and 355 as of mid-1990. Despite this dramatic growth rate, the
number of reported AIDS cases in Ethiopia was lower than in many other
African countries. However, the difference likely reflected the
comparatively small amount of resources being devoted to the study of
AIDS.
Starting in 1975, the regime embarked on the formulation of a new
health policy emphasizing disease prevention and control, rural health
services, and promotion of community involvement and self-reliance in
health activities. The ground for the new policy was broken during the
student zemecha of 1975/76, which introduced peasants to the need for
improved health standards. In 1983 the government drew up a ten-year
health perspective plan that was incorporated into the ten-year economic
development plan launched in September 1984. The goal of this plan was
the provision of health services to 80 percent of the population by
1993/94. To achieve such a goal would have required an increase of over
10 percent in annual budget allocations, which was unrealistic in view
of fiscal constraints.
The regime decentralized health care administration to the local
level in keeping with its objective of community involvement in health
matters. Regional Ministry of Health offices gave assistance in
technical matters, but peasant associations and kebeles had considerable
autonomy in educating people on health matters and in constructing
health facilities in outlying areas. Starting in 1981, a hierarchy of
community health services, health stations, health centers, rural
hospitals, regional hospitals, and central referral hospitals were
supposed to provide health care. By the late 1980s, however, these
facilities were available to only a small fraction of the country's
population.
At the bottom of the health-care pyramid was the community health
service, designed to give every 1,000 people access to a community
health agent, someone with three months of training in environmental
sanitation and the treatment of simple diseases. In addition to the
community health agent, there was a traditional birth attendant, with
one month of training in prenatal and postnatal care and safe delivery
practices. As of 1988, only about a quarter of the population was being
served by a community health agent or a traditional birth attendant.
Both categories were made up of volunteers chosen by the community and
were supported by health assistants.
Health assistants were full-time Ministry of Health workers with
eighteen months of training, based at health stations ultimately to be
provided at the rate of one health station per 10,000 population. Each
health station was ultimately to be staffed by three health assistants.
Ten health stations were supervised by one health center, which was
designed to provide services for a 100,000-person segment of the
population. The Regional Health Department supervised health centers.
Rural hospitals with an average of seventy-five beds and general
regional hospitals with 100 to 250 beds provided referral services for
health centers. The six central referral hospitals were organized to
provide care in all important specialties, train health professionals,
and conduct research. There were a few specialized hospitals for leprosy
and tuberculosis, but overall the lack of funds meant emphasis on
building health centers and health stations rather than hospitals.
Trained medical personnel were also in short supply. As noted
previously, the ratio of citizens to physicians was one of the worst in
the world. Of 4,000 positions for nurses, only half were filled, and
half of all health stations were staffed by only one health assistant
instead of the planned three. There were two medical schools--in Addis
Ababa and Gonder--and one school of pharmacy, all managed by Addis Ababa
University. The Gonder medical school also trained nurses and sanitation
and laboratory technicians. The Ministry of Health ran three nursing
schools and eleven schools for health assistants. Missionaries also ran
two such schools. The regime increased the number of nurses to 385 and
health assistants to 650 annually, but the health budget could not
support this many new graduates. The quality of graduates had also not
kept pace with the quantity of graduates.
Since 1974 there have been modest improvements in national
expenditures on public health. Between 1970 and 1975, the government
spent about 5 percent of its total budget on health programs. From 1975
to 1978, annual expenditures varied between 5.5 and 6.6 percent of
outlays, and for the 1982-88 period total expenditures on the Ministry
of Health were about 4 percent of total government expenditures. This
was a low figure but comparable to that for other low-income African
countries. Moreover, much of the real increases of 7 to 8 percent in the
health budget went to salaries.
A number of countries were generous in helping Ethiopia meet its
health care needs. Cuba, the Soviet Union, and a number of East European
countries provided medical assistance. In early 1980, nearly 300 Cuban
medical technicians, including more than 100 physicians, supported local
efforts to resolve public health problems. Western aid for long-term
development of Ethiopia's health sector was modest, averaging about
US$10 million annually, the lowest per capita assistance in sub-Saharan
Africa. The main Western donors included Italy and Sweden. International
organizations, namely UNICEF, WHO, and the United Nations Population
Fund, also extended assistance.
