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FEATURES

By CLAIRE DASYLVA

This year the People’s Republic of Ethiopia is marking
the tenth anniversary of its anti-feudal, anti-imperialist
revolution. It had broken the chains of centuries of slav-
ery and had embarked on the road to socialism.

On September 12, I watched as 75,000 Ethiopians of all
ages and walks of life paraded on Revolution Square in
the capital, Addis Ababa, to celebrate their revolution,

fore a million supporters.

It took place following the founding congress of the
Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE), which met from
Sept. 6 to 10.

CIA and Puppets

Imperialism is still very much interested in this coun-
try of 35 million people, located in the horn of Africa
(with Sudan to the west, Somalia to the south-east, and
across the Red Sea Saudi Arabia and the Yemens). _

Financed by the CIA, the puppet regimes of Somalia
and Sudan are still sending their troops into Ethiopia to
fuel the counter-revolutionaries who have close links

With the separatists in Eritrea (one of the 14 administra-

tive regions of the country.)

The agents of imperialism have tried everything to
block the revolutionary process: economic blockade,
destabilization of the distribution of products between
the countryside and the towns; bombing of buildings,

Tidges, systems of communications, electric in-
Stallations, etc.

Fighting Imperialists and Fascists

Ethiopia, cradle of humanity, where more than 80
Nationalities and ethnic groups live, is 3,000 years old.
Only the long tradition of united struggle of its people
against Italian and home-incubated fascism, colonialism
and imperialism has permitted Ethiopians to resist even
today, foreign aggression. a

Among the most important and unique characteristics
of the Ethiopian revolution is the exceptional role played
by the armed forces. In the former, imperialist army,
Sons of peasants, workers and slaves were recruited
against their will to serve the ruling elite. That is why
they quickly understood the revolutionary slogan: “Do
not fire on the people!’’ Today’s army is a centre of

arxist-Leninist study.

After a few months of upheaval and dual power, on
September 12, 1974, the emperor was deposed, and this
Opened the door to the revolution, spontaneously in-
voked by the masses. ;

On December 20, that year, the military committee
feclared socialism as the guideline of the Ethiopian revo-
ution.

The leader of the country, Commander-in-chief of the

€volutionary Armed Forces, and now secretary-

8eneral of the Workers’ Party, Mengistu Haile-Mariam,

Was part of the leadership of the Co-ordinating Com-
mittee of the Armed Forces, which acted as the govern-
Ment after September 12.

—CLAIR DASYLVA

TRIBUNE PHOTO

REVOLUTION SQUARE, ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: 75,000 celebrate the founding conference of the Workers’ Party.

The son of a slave, Mengistu studied in the USA, and
discovered there the Communist Manifesto. The stu-
dents, many of whom had discovered Marxism-Lenin-
ism abroad, became allies of the popular masses.

At the congress of the Workers’ Party the armed.

forces swore to defend the revolutionary land, to defend
peace, equality and justice. They participate as well in
production and are giving utmost assistance to the
people stricken by drought.

Mediaevalism to Socialism

The first political task of the military government was
to destroy the feudal system and carry out the people’s
democratic revolution. The government also had the
task of bringing to the people rights they had never had,
in an effort to pull them out of mediaeval darkness.

Through agrarian reform, advances for the small
working class (10 per cent), vocational training and ad-
vances for women, the revolution made its mark. In
health and education tremendous odds had to be over-
come.

Great efforts are still necessary to raise the country
from under-development and, Ethiopia, as it builds
socialism, is receiving solidarity aid from the socialist
community.

Party and Masses

Shortly before the revolution, the military government
became aware of an ideological gap. There was no poli-
tical organization to lead the revolution. Thus they
created, after many mistakes and discussions, a com-
mission responsible to establish the Workers’ Party of
Ethiopia.

‘‘The formation of the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia is
part of our struggle to build socialism,’ Mengistu told
the congress.

Besides the 10-year plan, the 2,000 delegates from the
14 regions unanimously adopted the deep-going report of
the Committee to Organize the Workers’ Party of
Ethiopia, read by Mengistu, and the party constitution.
All these documents had ‘been discussed for several
months before the congress.

At the congress a central committee of 160 members
was elected, including six women, a first for Ethiopia.

Mengistu, elected general secretary, said: ‘‘We must
deferid the party, because it is not only ours, but it
belongs to the whole population.”

Under the aegis of the new government a new trade
union organization was formed, as well as a peasants’
association.

Marx, Lenin on African Soil

Representatives of Communist, Workers’ and
People’s parties participated in the congress, including
15 general secretaries, as well as representatives of
governments and liberation movements. Representation
from more than 70 countries included state leaders from
Democratic Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Djib-
outi, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

Leaders from the African National Congress, the
South West African People’s Organization (Namibia),
Nicaragua’s Sandinista Front, the Farubundi Marti Na-
tional Liberation Front of El Salvador, the Polisario
Front (Morocco), the Palestine Liberation Organization,
as well as representatives from socialist governments,
including Afghanistan, were represented.

With strong international ties, the Ethiopian Govern-
ment is pledged to continue its efforts for peace, as well
as for a new international economic order, both of which
it sees as vital for the people’s progress. In addition,
Mengistu is the current head of the Organization of Afri-
can Unity, whose headquarters is in Addis Ababa.

On this tenth anniversary of the revolution, a monu-
ment in memory of the patriots who died for the country
and the revolution — (Tiglachin, our struggle) was un-
veiled. Five years earlier, then head of the Soviet state
Alexei Kosygin, had unveiled the first statue of Lenin in
Africa.

On this occasion in 1984, Erich Honecker, leader of
the German Democratic Republic unveiled Africa’s first
statue of Karl Marx in front of the Addis Ababa Uni-
versity. And foreign guests were given the first volume of
Marx’s Capital inamharic, the main language of Ethiopia.

While vestiges of many centuries of slavery and of the
old feudal regime can still be seen in the capital, the fact
remains that the masses of slaves have broken their
chains and taken a giant step toward socialism.

More than 150 million people in at least 35 African
Countries south of the Sahara desert are starving follow-
ig many years of dry weather. In some areas it has not
rained for 16 years. Ina belt spanning the continent from

Negal to the Red Sea the desert has claimed as much as

kilometres in some areas of southward expansion.

Ethiopia is one of the countries to suffer from this.
Indeed tt was drought and hunger that sparked the 1974
Tevolution that removed Haile Selassie from his throne.

he emperor and his feudal-capitalist regime sought to
from the mass tragedy and even to deny its a
tence. Nothing was done to help when more than 200,
died from starvation.

One of the priorities of the new revolutionary govern
Ment was to Pde the people in the disaster meee ie
food and lodging. But in Ethiopia, as in many other fee, :
areas of Africa, drought and starvation has sunk sti
Toots during more than a century of comely i
‘sm, super-exploitation and forcibly imposed Dac
Wardness. Even if the new Ethiopian revolulionary

Drought will claim 150 million African lives

government had been able to escape counter-revolution
and aggression it could not possibly have solved the
basic problems in the short space of one decade.

The climate in Ethiopia is listed as temperate in gen-
eral within a tropical zone, which ordinarily experiences
a rainy period from June to September. But while rain
may fall in Addis Ababa which lies more than 2,000
meters above sea-level, the perennial drought continues
in many of the northern provinces.

Acolored map may reveal the topography of the coun-
try, but it does not show the destruction of wooded areas
over more than a century, a situation which has resulted
in a decline of such wooded areas from 40 per cent to a
mere 4 per cent today. This has resulted in a serious
change in the climate in some of the most thickly popu-
lated areas of the country.

The drought, crop failures, malnutrition and starva-
tion, lack of both finite and renewable raw material re-
sources and failure to develop industry is, in its entirety,
the result of the disastrous politics pursued prior to the
revolution of 1974.

The tremendous and difficult social problems which

Ethiopia along with other under-developed countries
suffer, can be eliminated once the country’s enormous
potential resources are developed in a planned way in the
interest of the people.

The constituent congress of the Workers’ Party of
Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa, Sept. 6-10, adopted a 10-year

_plan for economic and social development.

This gives priority to the economically productive
sectors: agriculture, industry, water-resources, mining,
reforestation, electrification, communications and
transport.

The mass media in Canada has lately carried reports
on the Ethiopian famine, but not without considerable
political bias and totally without the factual and histori-
cal setting of this struggle of these suffering people to
break out of capitalist, neo-colonialist, and imperial
bondage.

(The major source material for the above article is from the
Swedish Norrskenflammen, translated by Bruce Magnuson.)

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 14, 1984 e 5