"king of kings"
are to be run by the workers themselves without any interference from tutors of the breed sponsored by the junta or by Markos.
--A five-day workweek.
--A seven-hour workday.
--An immediate 50 percent raise in wages and salaries to cover part of the buying power of the pay we have lost in the past seven full years, and continual readjustments to bring wages up to the European level.
--Equal pay for men and women.
--A temporary reduction of working hours without any cut in pay in order to spread the work to absorb the unemployed in every category. Public works to eliminate unemployment.
-- The banning of overtime and the enactment of legislation carrying stiff penalties for employers who force workers to work overtime.
--Unemployment compensation at full pay. ETHIOPIA by A. DURET More than 200,000 people in the provinces of Wollo and Tigré have died of starvation during the famine that has ravaged Ethiopia. Nevertheless, according to the director of ecclesiastical affairs of the personal office of Haile Selassie, the most important thing is that "the people need spiritual nourishment. " Undoubtedly, that was the main reason for the cabinetordered disappearance of a document that had been produced by the ministry of agriculture in November 1972 warning about the food shortage that could be expected in 1973. The "Christian wisdom" of the regime of the "king of kings" likewise accounts for the hoarding of food reserves in Addis Ababa -hoarding that was so crudely obvious that UNESCO and the FAO, as accustomed as they are to malfeasance, requested the opening of an inquiry into the misappropriation of these food stocks. Thus, the profound corruption of the aristocracy 12
--One month paid vacation for all blues and white-collar workers regardless of their years of service.
--All insurance premiums to be paid by the employers.
--Administration by the workers themselves of all social insurance funds.
--Nurseries and special care for working mothers.
--Four hours work and four hours study for working youth between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
--Abolition of labor by minors under the age of fourteen and full social coverage for the guardianship and education of such minors.
--Equal conditions and equal rights for all foreign workers, including complete freedom to organize economically and politically.
--Abolition of all antilabor laws.
--Absolutely no state interference in the unions. EVERYONE JOIN IN THE STRUGGLE! the fall of the and the government apparatus was exposed for all to see. Denunciation of corruption was to become one of the preferred themes of the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee in justify ing the arrest of the main lords of the regime and also in preparing the elimination of the Negus (emperor). With the deposing of Haile Selassie on September 12 -- six months after the strike of the bank employees, bus drivers, and taxi driven and the mutiny of the troops in Asmara, Eritrea -- the crisis that broke out in February 1974 in one of the main bastions of reaction in Africa has reached the end of its first phase. The background Although it is the site of the headquarters of the Organizatio of African Unity and the UN's Economic Commission for Afric
ETHIOPIA Ethiopia had not played a very prominent role on the international political scene. This reticence allowed for the concealing of the striking underdevelopment of this country of 24 million people, a country whose per capita annual income is $80 (as compared to $110 in India, for example), whose illiteracy rate is 90 percent, and where there are 4,000 hotel beds for tourists but only 9,000 hospital beds for the population. There are only 350, 000-400, 000 wage earners, of whom 150,000 are employed in the private sector. Eighty percent of all workers are involved in subsistance agriculture. In 1969 agriculture accounted for 76 percent of the gross national product. Of the cultivable land, 90 percent is owned by the emperor, the feudal lords, and the church, a roughly equal share controlled by each. (The Economist, February 21, 1974.) Only about 10 percent of the available land is farmed, despite the fact that experts estimate that the unused land could feed at least 100 million people. These figures express the reality of the Ethiopian agrarian structure. Two modes of production coexist. One is feudal and, from the standpoint of the labor force it employs and the contribution it makes to the national production, it is dominant. The other is capitalist. In the sector whose production system is feudal, ground rent, whose form varies in different provinces, is still generally paid in kind. The peasants, serfs croppers, are relieved of 50 percent of their harvest in the form of rent in kind. This is officially recognized in the Civil Code (Articles 2989-91). But the real rent exceeds that figure, for the feudal lords exploit the peasants in other forms as well: special taxes for renewing the right of tenancy, ecclesiastical tax (the tithe !), various services that must be rendered the lord (construction of his graineries, house, etc.). In this context, any improvement in the level of agricultural production is virtually impossible. Because of the 50 percent rent, the peasant would get the benefit of only half of any increase in productivity generated by new investment. And the low level of technology, not to mention the natural conditions, obviously makes any substantial improvement in productivity through increased investment extremely improbable. In addition, the share-croppers and serfs find themselves in a state of perma-
They are not certain of being able to obtain renewals of their "right" to "exploit" the land that is granted them by the lord. They do not know what the farming tax will be in the coming year. This super-dependency, in addition to the official and private repressive forces, is one of the instruments of domination assuring the "docility" of the peasantry. Those are some of the factors, in addition to the social and cultural role of the church and the concentration of landed property, that explain the extreme agricultural underdevelopment of the empire of the Negus. The major part of the land is controlled by the landed aristocracy (which is the ruling class economically and politically), the church notables, and the imperial family. The biggest landlords are for the most part absentee landlords. They have penetrated a good part of the administrative apparatus. Superimposed over this layer of large landed proprietors is an intermediary layer of local landlords commanding political-administrative powers -- which vary from province to province -who are in direct contact with the masses of peasants. The church plays an important role in the system of rule. It is not only one of the three great categories of landed proprietors, it also serves as the communication channel between the state and the masses of peasants. Composed of a clergy that runs to more than 200,000 priests, deacons, and cantors whose obscurantism cannot be exaggerated, the church has participated actively for decades in the campaign to maintain illiteracy.
The peasant-serfs have risen up against this exploitation on several occasions: in 1948 in Ogadem, in 1958 in Wollo, in 1960 in the province of Sisamo, and in 1973 in Werehimo and Guder. On each occasion, the repressive forces intervened with bloody savagery, massacring peasants by the hundreds. Today, however, the structure has begun to shake more violently than ever, and the slogan "land to those who till it" cannot fail to spread more and more among the exploited masses of the Ethiopian countryside. The imperialist presence A second feature of Ethiopia is the extremely close ties between the feudal structure and imperialism. Superimposed over the traditional economy there is a manufacturing and industrial sector controlled by imperialism -- essentially U.S., British, Dutch, and Japanese imperialism. The agro-industrial sector is under the domination of Dutch capital, specifically the famous Dutch-HVA firm, a company formed initially with capital withdrawn from Indonesia after its independence. The sugar sector is 40 percent controlled by a single British company, Mitche|| Cotts, which also invests in cotton. The textile industry, which employs 34 percent of all industrial workers and alone accounts for 26 percent of all fixed capital, is controlled by Japanese and American capital. Mobil und Gulf Oil have gotten their hands on the oil deposits off the coast in the Red Sea. The concessions granted imperialist capital by the 1963 Decree on Investments are fabulous. For the first five years of their activities, foreign companies are exempt from all taxes. More than 80 percent of the industrial sector is in the hands of imperialist capital. The parasitism of the feudal structures and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie is expressed in the fact that their investments are made essentially in real estate, especially since 1963, when the location of the OAU headquarter. in Addis Ababa provided a definitely favorable terrain for real estate speculation and the construction of villas! But imperialism also takes Ethiopia's strategic position into account. Eritrea borders the Red Sea and, along with Djibuti (which is under French administration), controls passage throug the Bab el-Mandib, which is the access to the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. Moreover, Ethiopia is located midway between the explosive Arab East and southern Africa. Ethiopia is not only the seat of the OAU, which is of interest to various imperialist powers, but also offers a location for various military bases, among them Kagnew, which before the development of the satellite telecommunications system played a decisive role in the region as a communications and listening
"The United States injects money into Haile Selassie's. Ethiopia. : in order to maintain its influence in the Red Sea, "wrote the June 19, 1970, U.S. News and World Report. There is no doubt that American imperialism was initially involved in the governmental crisis that opened last February. After having foiled two attempted coups in 1960 and 1964, Washington began to take account of the difficulties posed by the succession of the Negus. The crisis had been deepening since 1966. The American intelligence services were prepared to take a line other than support to Haile Se lassie. But American imperialism definitely did not foresee the dynamic that would be unleashed in February 1974. That dynamic was the product of the convergence of a series of factors: The crisis in the army, stimulated by the struggle of the Eritrean fighters, aroused the emergence of a movement that rapidly went beyond the stage of material demands. The famine not only exposed the rottenness of the regime, but also led to revolts in
ETHIOPIA the countryside. Concurrently, the workers movement was for the first time launching a mobilization of some scope, and it was being supported by the student movement. This mobilization not only influenced the process of differentiation in the army, it also made the situation much less controllable for the Makonnen government, which was set up at the opening of the crisis. Finally, the church was affected by the crisis. During the month of March, a movement of revolt against the hierarchy and for salary increases developed among the lowranking clergy. Many of the priests are simply serfs of the top hierarchy. The entire Ethiopian social structure was shaken; decomposition of the imposing state apparatus began to speed up. All these movements converged toward challenging the autocracy well before the confrontation between the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee and the representatives of the old regime gave the signal for a popular mobilization of great breadth. The crisis in the army There are about 45, 000 officers, non-coms, and enlisted men in the armed forces. To this must be added 32, 000 men in the police force, 12,070 men in the territorial army, which specializes in repression of the peasant masses, and an antiguerrilla force of 5,000. The police are equipped by West Germany. The Israelis are in charge of training the paratroops and intel-
Even though the Ethiopian government was compelled by pressure from various African states to break diplomatic relations with Israel in July 1973, the "Israeli advisers" continue their "training instructions" unabated. But the most important part of the armed forces is trained by Americans, and many officers were students in U.S. military schools. Nevertheless, this repressive force, which was charged with the job of maintaining the power of the emperor and the Amhara aristucracy*, was not able to resist the blows dealt it by the Eritrean liberation forces and was experiencing growing inThe Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was formed in 1960 by militants who had been members of the traditional political pardevelopment of the armed struggle was rapid, to the point that the emperor had to send some 6, 000 troops to "his" province. Eritrea, inhabited by 3 million ethnically and religiously diverse people, was attached to Ethiopia in 1952 after a UN General Assembly vote recommended federation of the two countries. This vote was conducted under the pressure of American imperialism, which maintained privileged ties with Haile Selassie. The Eritrean government was dissolved in 1960 and in 1962 the "king of kings" made Eritrea a simple province of the empire. Armed resistance began very quickly. Eritrea became a real brush fire spreading through Ethiopian feudal tinder. The "classical" measures of antiguerrilla war were utilized by the regime: displacement of population, napalm bombing, destruction of villages. More than 150, 000 Eritrean refugees try to survive in the neighboring Sudanese desert. But all this was unable to destroy the resistance. *The Amhara are the dominant ethnic minority of 3 million. One of their chiefs, Menelik, imposed a real colonial administration over the non-Amhara peoples during the nineteenth century. 14
At the end of the 1960s there was an internal crisis in the ELF that led to a certain process of political clarification. The crisis had been revealed both in the Front's difficulties in winning a base among the Christian population of the central plain -- difficulties linked in part to the clearly religious outlook affirmed by some of the Muslim leaders of the ELF -- and by the Front's internal strife provoked by its strict hierarchical structure and the limitations of its social demands. In January 4970 three wings arose within the movement: the ELF general command, led by Telda Bairu; the ELF-Popular Liberation Forces (the left wing); and the ELF-Eritrean Liberation Forces (a minority, a good part of whose members later rejoined the Popular Forces). This division in the liberation movement came at the moment when a broad offensive had been launched against the independence movement. The Negus had to recognize the reality of the liberation war, and a "state of emergency" was declared. In 1972, there was a recomposition of the liberation movement. The majority of forces regrouped in the Popular. Liberation Forces. This was to stimulate a new phase in the liberation struggle, both in the military sense and in the sense of the reforms being carried out in the liberated zones. Thus, in December 1973 and at the beginning of 1974 the Ethiopian army suffered important reverses. Two brigades of the Imperial Guard that had been ordered to conduct a searchand-destroy operation in January 1974 suffered serious defeats. In the north of the country at the beginning of February there was a three-day battle between the emperor's troops and the Popular Liberation Forces. It was then that the mutiny of the troops in Asmara, Eritrea's largest city, took place. The banks, airport, and strategic points of the city were occupied. The mutineers -- soldiers and non-coms -- demanded an increase in pay. The navy joined the rebellion. The Ethiopian fleet admiral was seized by the rebels. General Asefa, sent by Addis Ababa, was taken hostage by the troops in Asmara. On February 27 air-force troops and paratroopers took control of the city of Debre Zeit, a little more than 30 miles from the capital. Faced with the extension of the crisis, the government of Aklil Abre Wold, which had been in power since 1961, had to resign. Within the army the first elements began to take shape of what until the beginning of September would be a de facto second regime: the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee. Although the emperor had systematically played on the divisions in the army, allowing each corps a great degree of autonomy, the crisis quickly spread to all sectors and even infected the Imperial Guard. This does not mean that the heterogeneous features of the army were eliminated, but the change in the relationship of forces is important. The movement that arose out of "the February events" was based in part on the officers and non-coms who had come out of the ranks and in part on officers who appeared as the bearers of a program able to dam up the potential mass movement. These officers, among them General Andom, could well be the elements American imperialism considered best able to control a movement whose outbreak could no longer be prevented. Worker and peasant struggles While for the time being the peasantry and the workers have not entered into massive mobilization, the various sectoral movements, the March 7 general strike, and the limited explosions of peasant revolts, as well as the demonstrations of the student movement -- which has stood at the head of the
opposition movement for some years -- determined the framework within which the crisis in the army developed and the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee emerged. The workers of the Wonji sugar refinery (a subsidiary of the Dutch-HVA trust) marked the entry of the working class into the struggle in January 1974. Their strike, based around demands relating to wages and working conditions, lasted for two months. At the beginning of February the employees of the Ethiopian Bank of Commerce and the Bank of Addis Ababa
*13g went on strike. They were soon followed by the airport ground workers, who were demanding job security. Finally, on February 11 the teachers went on strike against the proposed education reform. The student movement supported these struggles. The repression was ferocious, but the educational reform was postponed indefinitely and wage increases were promised "on the condition that the teachers go back to work." That was a first victory. On February 25, even though the government promised to freeze prices and increase wages, the air-traffic controllers went on strike, just as the transport strike was ending. The crisis in the army was added to these mobilizations, even though the army continued to play its repressive role. On March 1 the new government of Endalkatchew Makonnen, former Ethiopian representative to the UN, who appeared as the direct representative of American interests, had to deal with a new mobilization. The students relaunched the battle, with cries of "People's government, yes, Endalkatchew no!" Makonnen declared a curfew, but that did not prevent the revolt from spreading. On March 4, to Makonnen's great surprise, the CELU, Ethiopian trade-union federation, threatened to call a general strike. (It is well known that since the liquidation of the trade-union leaders in 1960, the federation, led by Beyene Solomon, has been controlled by Washington through the offices of the AFL-CIO. Moreover, many union leaders had received training in the Israeli Histadrut.) This threat of a general strike reflected the changes in the relationship of forces between the working class and the trade-union leaderships, changes due in large part to the entry into the working class of youth who had been expelled from school. On March 7 a general strike broke out, generally effective in the construction industry and among the bus drivers, railroad workers, and airport workers. Some of the workers disobeyed the orders of the CELU and joined the students in demonstrations. The strike eventually petered out. Nevertheless, it showed for the first time that many sectors of the working class were capable of responding to the government and illustrated the government-linked union leaders' loss of control over the ranks. The struggle movements continued. They raised issues of wages, ds well as the right to strike and trade-union independence. After strikes by the postal workers, the dockers, the truckers, and the bus drivers, the government issued an absolute ban on strikes and demonstrations. The student and worker response was immediate. On April 27 the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee therefore announced its decision to arrest all the "high functionaries" of the regime who had been accused of corruption. The divisions within the ruling class remain acute. Makonnen is one of the administrative cadres and members of the "intelligentsia" who emerged from the landed aristocracy. This sector commands significant financial assets and wants to participate in developing a "modern" sector of the Ethiopian economy. This government may manifest some opposition to the feudalists who felt more at ease with the emperor or Prince but it is obvious that it cannot carry out any real reform program, however modest. Since June the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee has been asserting its strength very clearly through military occupations of the airport, the radio stations, and the ministries. Prince Kassa, along with many other personalities of the regime, was arrested. Mini-coups were carried out one after the other. On July 4 the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee, more openly expressing its reformist program, presented four demands to the emperor:
--amnesty for all "patriots" imprisoned before February 1974;
--amnesty for political exiles;
--rapid application of a revised constitution;
-the Coordinating Committee should work with the government to assure the carrying out of various projects. On July 22 the armed forces put the fourth demand into effect. They through out Makonnen and eplaced him with Lidi Michael Imru. He also comes from the landed nobility. But he achieved a certain popularity in the 1950s by distributing some of his land to the peasants. Nevertheless, the governmental change was much more characterized by the forceful entry of the officers into the government that was formed on August 3. Sixteen imperial palaces were nationalized during August. But above all, the governmental pillars of the imperial regime were suppressed: the Crown Council, the Imperial Military Council, the Imperial Tribunal, the Ministry of the "Imperial
"a body tied directly to the emperor. Aman Andom, minister of defense and chief of the general staff, emerged as the strong man of the situation. On September 12 the emperor left his palace -- by Volkswagen. Throughout the crisis the obvious line of the officers was to avoid any direct confrontation with the regime, for that could have been the spark that could have touched off the entry onto the scene on a large scale of the working class and the mass movement. Various elements of the Ethiopian situation came to the fore during the phase of crisis that lasted from February to September. Nevertheless, the key element, the peasantry, did not really assert itself. The ability or inability of the reformist leadership to calmly begin the process of modernization, for which it will need some social base, will depend in large part on the attitude of the peasantry. For imperialism, which wants at all costs to avoid the destructuration of the country, this is the most crucial thing. Its success is linked to many factors, among the most important of which are the struggle of the Eritrean fighters, the internal contradictions within the army, and the capacity of the workers and students for mobilization. But the "peasant" question and the question of the capacity of the Ethiopian vanguard to respond to the project of "modernization with calm" both remain to be answered.
15
UNITED STATES WA ENS AMARY DIT: *1937* Only six months ago the capitalist press in the United States was still hailing the "remarkable restraint" of the trade unions. "Labor, the Sleeping Giant: Settlements Are Moderate, But Prices and Profits Are Almost Embarrassing" was a typical headline. Now typical headlines read: "U.S. Swept by Labor Strife" and "Labor: Strike, Strike, Strike. In mid-July government mediators announced that they were trying to settle 588 strikes, the highest total for a single week since they began keeping count fifteen years ago. The Labor Department reported that there were 1, 130 strikes, involving 796,000 workers and costing 7.9 million workdays, during the whole month of July. Thus, strike activity had more than doubled since July 1973, when strikes involved 320, 000 workers and cost less than 3 million workdays. The rapid upswing of strikes since government wage-controls were allowed to expire April 30 is an indication of the pent-up anger of American workers and their determination to defend themselves against the ravages of inflation. Consumer prices in the United States are rising at an annual rate of about 12 percent, according to government figures. Construction workers, who had been placed under wage controls before the rest of the working class, have been in the forefront of efforts to catch up with inflation. An estimated 20 percent of all current strikes are in the construction industry • Other industries and individual firms where "labor peace" had reigned for years are being shaken up. At the