Derg

The Derg, Common Derg or Dergue (Ge'ez: ደርግ, meaning "committee" or "council") is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987. It took power following the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Soon after it was established, the committee was formally renamed the Provisional Military Administrative Council, but continued to be known popularly as "the Derg". In 1975, it embraced communism as an ideology; it remained in power until 1987. Between 1975 and 1987, the Derg executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of its opponents without trial.

In 1987 Mengistu Haile Mariam abolished the Derg, establishing the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. After years of warfare by a coalition of ethnic-based parties, Mengistu was overthrown in 1991.

Formation and growth

The Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, or the Derg (Ge'ez "Committee"), was officially announced 28 June 1974 by a group of military officers to maintain law and order due to the powerlessness of the civilian government following widespread mutiny in the armed forces of Ethiopia earlier that year. Its members were not directly involved in those mutinies (as far as anyone knows), nor was this the first military committee organized to support the administration of Prime Minister Endelkachew Makonnen. Alem Zewde Tessema had established the Armed Forces Coordinated Committee 23 March. Over the following months, radicals in the Ethiopian military came to believe Makonnen was acting on behalf of the hated feudal aristocracy. When a group of notables petitioned for the release of a number of government ministers and officials who were under arrest for corruption and other crimes, three days later the Derg was announced.

Ethiopian Civil War

The Ethiopian Civil War began on 12 September 1974 when the Marxist Derg staged a coup d'état against Emperor Haile Selassie. The civil war lasted until the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government in 1991. The war left at least 1.4 million dead.

1970s

In March 1975, revolutionaries abolished the monarchy. The Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen settled permanently in New York City, where several other members of the Imperial family lived. The other members who were still in Ethiopia at the time of the revolution were imprisoned. The imprisoned members of the Imperial family included Prince Wossen's father, Emperor Haile Selassie, his daughter by his first marriage, Princess Ijigayehu, his sister, Princess Tenagnework, and many of his nephews, nieces, relatives and in-laws. In 1975 his father, Emperor Haile Selassie, died in detention. In 1977 his daughter, Princess Ijigayehu, died in detention. Members of the Imperial family remained imprisoned until 1988 (for the women) and 1989 (for the men).