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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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052989
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05298900.025
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1990-09-22
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WORLD, Page 61ETHIOPIAFizzled CoupBut Mengistu's position remains precarious
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.