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- <text id=89TT1402>
- <title>
- May 29, 1989: Ethiopia:Fizzled Coup
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- May 29, 1989 China In Turmoil
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 61
- ETHIOPIA
- Fizzled Coup
- </hdr><body>
- <p>But Mengistu's position remains precarious
- </p>
- <p> Pomp and circumstance was the order of the day at Addis
- Ababa's Bole International Airport as Ethiopia's Marxist
- President, Lieut. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, gave a group
- of progovernment dignitaries a pep talk and then flew off for
- a four-day state visit to East Germany. But within a few hours
- of his departure early last week, a group of senior army
- officers were in revolt against Mengistu's rigidly Marxist
- twelve-year-old regime.
- </p>
- <p> The attempted coup began when rebel officers seized the
- Defense Ministry. Major General Haile Giorgis Habte Mariam, the
- Defense Minister, refused to join the revolt and was killed.
- There were reports of MiG-21s and helicopter gunships screeching
- over the capital and of tanks and armored personnel carriers
- converging on the ministry. Meanwhile, in Asmara, the northern
- provincial capital and Ethiopia's second largest city,
- Mengistu's Second Army, some 150,000 strong, was in mutiny. In
- sympathy with the rebellion, the Eritrean People's Liberation
- Front announced a two-week cease-fire in its 27-year-old war of
- secession.
- </p>
- <p> Within a day, Mengistu rushed home to restore control. He
- cut off his country from the outside world, closing airports
- and telecommunications lines. By week's end the President
- announced that the coup had failed and vowed that his forces
- would "liquidate" the traitors. According to the State Ruling
- Council, most of the conspirators had surrendered. But the toll
- of the insurrection was high: nine generals, including the air
- force commander and the army Chief of Staff, had died.
- </p>
- <p> Though he retains control for the moment, Mengistu's
- position is likely to remain precarious. His Soviet-supplied
- army is one of the largest and best equipped in Africa, but it
- has suffered what one Ethiopian officer called "disastrous,
- bloody chaos." Last March it was trounced by rebels from the
- Tigre People's Liberation Front, which has been fighting the
- government for twelve years. One year earlier, 19,000 government
- soldiers were routed by Eritrean forces.
- </p>
- <p> Army officers say they are demoralized by political
- mishandling of military affairs and by worries of eventual
- weapons shortages as Moscow pressures Mengistu to settle the
- civil war. Much of the civilian population would also like to
- see their leader deposed. People were particularly angered when
- Mengistu ordered the forced conscription of 100,000 boys, some
- as young as 13.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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