On this day 21 years ago, the Ethiopian Civil War effectively ended when the president Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country. Mengistu, who was subsequently convicted in absentia of genocide, was the chairman of the Derg, a military junta which seized power in Ethiopia from Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The Derg embraced communism in 1975 and later the same year Haile Selassie died, perhaps murdered on the orders of Mengistu.
The period between 1975 and 1977 was marked by power struggles and became known as the Red Terror, with violent suppression of opponents and extensive killings and violations of human rights. This was the start of the Ethiopian Civil War, during which the country suffered rapid decline in agricultural productivity due to insecurity, corruption, and the nationalisation of land, eventually leading to severe famine.
The Derg was officially replaced by a civilian government in 1987, but the surviving members of the Derg became the leaders of the new civilian regime. However, Soviet aid came to an end in 1990, giving Ethiopian rebel forces a more even playing field, and by early 1991 the rebel forces were gaining the upper hand. On 21 May Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he still resides under the protection of Robert Mugabe’s regime.