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...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
