Word: ethiopia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...millions of Ethiopians for whom starvation is a constant foe, the stakes in the struggle for control of the country are especially high. So far, the tumult has brought them nothing but misery. Food deliveries to Ethiopia's 7 million drought victims have been disrupted, and in some cases stopped, by the fighting. Supply trucks were attacked and looted, and international relief workers fled. The fall of coastal Assab to Eritrean fighters two weeks ago temporarily closed the city's port on the Red Sea, one of the most important conduits...
Finding himself one moment a rebel, the next the de facto ruler of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi allowed himself a wry comment during a press conference in London last week. Asked about the banner hanging behind him, a red flag emblazoned with the image of an AK-47, the modern guerrilla's weapon of choice, the leader of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front smiled. "I suppose we won't use the Kalashnikov anymore," he said, giving voice to widespread hopes that the decades of civil war in Ethiopia were finally over...
...their guns. This time they battled not government forces but thousands of civilians who had taken to the streets to protest the sudden ascendancy of Meles' maverick band. It was a curious reaction, considering that Meles' troops had deposed Mengistu Haile Mariam, the onetime lieutenant colonel who had ruled Ethiopia for 14 bloody years. The demonstrations and crackdowns left at least 10 dead and an additional 400 wounded...
...fair, it could have been worse, as it has been elsewhere. The recent fall of governments in Liberia and Somalia invited spasms of bloodletting that make the tumult in Ethiopia look like a tiff between friends. Still, the unrest in Addis Ababa laid bare the factional divisions that continue to plague Ethiopia, a country that has 70 ethnic groups and at least as many different languages. Holding together the country, or what remains of it, will be as daunting a task for the new regime as it was for the fallen...
...sophisticated of the Ethiopians and therefore the country's rightful masters. The Tigreans speak a different language and stem from a region hundreds of miles north of the capital. They have been rivals of the Amharas for two millenniums, going back to a time when the capital of ancient Ethiopia was Aksum, in the heart of Tigre country. When the Democratic Front arrived in Addis Ababa, hundreds of people flooded into the streets simply to stare in wonder at these strange Tigreans, these "bandits" and "barbarians" Mengistu had warned about for years...