Derg - Formation and Growth

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 presently 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. However, over the following months radicals in the Ethiopian military came to believe he was acting on behalf of the hated aristocracy, and 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.

The Derg, which originally consisted of soldiers at the capital, broadened its membership by including representatives from the 40 units of the Ethiopian Army, Air Force, Navy, Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard), Territorial Army and Police: each unit was expected to send three representatives, who were supposed to be privates, NCOs and junior officers up to the rank of major. According to Bahru Zewde, "senior officers were deemed too compromised by close association to the regime." It is commonly stated that the Derg consisted of 120 soldiers, a statement which has gained wide acceptance due to the habitual secretiveness of the Derg in its early years; however Bahru Zewde notes that "in actual fact, their number was less than 110", and Aregawi Berhe mentions two different sources which record 109 persons as being members of the Derg. No new members were ever admitted, and the number decreased, especially in the first few years, as some members were expelled or killed.

The committee elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam as its chairman and Major Atnafu Abate as its vice-chairman. The Derg was initially supposed to study the grievances of various military units, and investigate abuses by senior officers and staff, and to root out corruption in the military.

In the months following its founding, the power of the Derg steadily increased. In July the Derg obtained key concessions from the Emperor, Haile Selassie, which included the power to arrest not only military officers, but government officials at every level. Soon both former Prime Ministers Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold, and Endelkachew Makonnen, along with most of their cabinets, most regional governors, many senior military officers and officials of the Imperial court found themselves imprisoned. In August, after a proposed constitution creating a constitutional monarchy was presented to the Emperor, the Derg began a program of dismantling the imperial government in order to forestall further developments in that direction. The Derg deposed and imprisoned the Emperor on September 12, 1974.

On September 15, the committee renamed itself the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC) and took control of the government. The Derg chose Lieutenant General Aman Andom, a very popular military leader and a Sandhurst graduate, to be its chairman and acting head-of-state until the Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen could return from his medical treatment in Europe, and assume the throne as a constitutional monarch. However, General Aman Andom quarreled with the radical elements in the Derg over the issue of a new military offensive in Eritrea and the proposal to execute the high officials of the Emperor's former government. After eliminating units loyal to him—the Engineers, the Imperial Bodyguard and the Air Force—the Derg removed General Aman from power and executed him along with some supporters and 60 officials of the previous Imperial government on November 24, 1974. Brigadier General Tafari Benti became both the new Chairman of the Derg and head of state, with Mengistu and Atnafu Abate as his two vice-Chairmen with the new ranks of Lieutenant-Colonels. The monarchy was formally abolished in May, 1975, and Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed the ideology of the state. Emperor Haile Selassie died on August 22, 1975, while his personal physician was absent. It is commonly believed that Mengistu killed him, either ordering it done or by his own hand.