Ethiopian History

Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. The country has been an independent state since ancient times. In 1936, Italian Fascist forces invaded and occupied Ethiopia. British and Ethiopian forces defeated the Italians five years later. In 1974, a military group, the Derg, established a socialist state. In December 1976, Ethiopia signed a military assistance agreement with the Soviet Union. The following April, Ethiopia abrogated its military assistance agreement with the United States and expelled the American military missions. In July 1977, Somalia attacked Ethiopia across the Ogaden Desert. Ethiopian stopped the attack forces with the assistance of Soviet arms and Cuban combat forces [2]. The major Somali units were forced out of the Ogaden in March 1978. The Derg regime was fell in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) took control over Eritrea and established a provisional government in 1991, and Eritrea was declared independent in 1993. A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia’s first multiparty elections were held in 1995 [1]. Democratic institutions were established and an independent judiciary and press freedom were guaranteed. In May 1998, Eritrean forces attacked part of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border region, seizing some Ethiopian-controlled territory. The war between the neighboring states lasted for two years and cost over 100,000 lives. A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in 2000. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commition in 2007 remotely demarcated the border by geographical coordinates [1].