Atnafu Abate

Lieutenant Colonel Atnafu Abate (late 1930s - 1977) was an Ethiopian military officer and a leading member of the Derg, the military junta which deposed Emperor Haile Selassie and ruled the country for the next several years.

The Ottaways point out that Lt. Col. Atnafu was seen as "A symbol of the rebellion of a conservative, nationalistic, and religious peasantry against the corruption and abuses of the aristocracy. ... He early projected the image of the officer devoted to the traditional values of motherland, flag and church." [Marina and David Ottaway, "Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution" (New York: Africana, 1978), p. 131]

Atnafu was born near Bichena in Gojjam, and was educated at Holetta Military Academy. At the time of the Ethiopian Revolution, he was serving as a major in the Fourth Division, stationed in Addis Ababa. (He became a Lieutenant Colonel after April 1975.) [Ottaway, "Empire in Revolution", pp. 131, 135.]

By April 1974 he had joined the group of army and police officers led by Colonel Alem Zewde Tessema of the Airborne Corps, playing a major role in organizing them into a coordinating committee on 24 April, which was officially disbanded five days later to be replaced by the 25-member National Security Commission under the command of the Minister of Defense Abiye Abebe. At some point during the following month a second coordinating committee emerged, whose leading members included, besides Major Atnafu, Major Tafara Teklaeb of the Engineering Corps, Major Fisseha Desta of the elite Kebur Zabangna, Girma Fisseha of the Army Aviation, and Captain Sisay Hapte of the Air Force. This second committee was later better known under its later name, the Derg. [Ottaway, "Empire in Revolution", pp. 50ff] Colonel Alem Zewde fell from power at this time, losing control of his paratrooper battalion after its defeat in a battle with radicals on 22 June and afterwards fleeing for Gojjam. [Edmond J. Keller, "Revolutionary Ethiopia" (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 183]

During the first few years of the Derg's existence, Atnafu was perceived as one of the two most powerful members of the Derg -- Mengistu Haile Mariam being the other. "The relationship between the two vice-chairmen was always slightly mysterious," notes the Ottaways. "The two were rumoured to be bitter enemies from the beginning, to the point of pulling guns on each other in meetings. Yet, Atnafu always seemed to be on Mengistu's side at times of major crisis within the "Derg"." [Ottaway, "Empire in Revolution", p. 135] He commanded the effort in May 1976 to recruit, arm and train tens of thousands of peasants who would serve as a militia to supplement the weary soldiers of the regular army fighting at the Eritrean front. However, when that effort ended with heavy losses, both Atnafu and Mengistu were blamed for the failure. After a brief struggle when it appeared that Captain Sisay Hapte might gain control of the Derg -- but was executed -- at the beginning of December Atnafu was shunted out of direct competition for power by being made organizer of the militia. [Ottaway, "Empire in Revolution", pp. 138-144]

Although Atnafu managed to avoid the infamous Derg meeting of 3 February 1977, where a number of Derg leaders, including chairman and Lieutenant General Tafari Benti, were killed in an ambush that also took the lives of some of its executioners like Colonel Daniel Asfaw, as the sole remaining Derg member with a measure of independence from Mengistu, his days were numbered. In November of that year, he was executed after a session of the Derg congress where he had been provoked into challenging a number of the Derg's actions and basic assumptions. "The execution of Atnafu," observes historian Bahru Zewde, "who more than anybody else symbolized the Darg from its early origins in February 1974, effectively marked the eclipse of that organization." [Bahru Zewde, "A History of Modern Ethiopia", second edition (London: James Currey, 1991), p. 253] From that point on, Mengistu ruled the Derg, and later Ethiopia, unchecked.

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