Unlike all other African countries, the Ethiopia maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of a short-lived Italian occupation from 1936-41.
Communism
In 1974, a communist military group, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile Selassie (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state. Internally destroyed by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and many refugee problems, the regime was finally toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
Ethiopia Today
A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia's first multiparty elections were held in 1995. A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000. In November 2007, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission(EEBC) issued specific coordinates as the border and said they were finished. Thinking that the EEBC overextended in calling the border, Ethiopia has not accepted them and has not withdrawn troops from borderline areas contested by both countries.
A Brief History
Haile Selassie I, Former Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Lion of the tribe of Judah
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