Lieutenant Colonel Atnafu Abate (Amharic: አጥናፉ አባቴ; late 1930s – 1977) was an Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n military officer and a leading member of the Derg

Derg

The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...

, the military junta

Military junta

A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...

 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."

Life

Atnafu was born near Bichena

Bichena

Bichena is a town in west-central Ethiopia. Located in the Misraq Gojjam Zone of the Amhara Region on the hillside overlooking the Abay River, it has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 2541 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Enemay woreda.-History:Bichena was...

 in Gojjam

Gojjam

Gojjam was a kingdom in the north-western part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Debre Marqos. This region is distinctive for lying entirely within the bend of the Abbay River from its outflow from Lake Tana to the Sudan...

, 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

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

. (He became a Lieutenant Colonel after April 1975.)

By April 1974 he had joined the group of army and police officers led by Colonel Alem Zewde Tessema

Alem Zewde Tessema

Alem Zewde Tessema was an Ethiopian military figure. He was a colonel of the Airborne Corps, Fourth Division. He was active at the beginning of the Ethiopian Revolution, helping to create the "Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces", which originally was intended to support Prime Minister...

 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

Ministry of Defense (Ethiopia)

The Ministry of National Defense of Ethiopia is a cabinet level office in charge of defense related matters of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia...

 Abiye Abebe

Abiye Abebe

Abiye Abebe was an Ethiopian politician and son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie. During the 1940s and 1950s he was Minister of War, and later served as Minister of Justice and Minister of the Interior...

. 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

Kebur Zabangna

Kebur Zabagna or Zebenya was the Ethiopian Imperial Guard. Also known as the First Division, this unit served the dual purposes of providing security for the Emperor of Ethiopia, and being an elite infantry division...

, Girma Fisseha of the Army Aviation, and Captain Sisay Hapte of the Air Force

Ethiopian Air Force

The Ethiopian Air Force is the air arm of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and is tasked with protecting the air space, providing support to the ground forces as well as assisting during national emergencies.- Early years :...

. This second committee is better known under its later name, the Derg

Derg

The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...

. 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 to Gojjam.

Within a month Tafara Teklaeb, whom Rene LaFort states was "probably more than any other the father of the Derg", was imprisoned then executed, leaving Atnafu to chair the first meetings of the Derg. It was at this point that one of the delegates from the Third Division, Major Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam is a politician who was formerly the most prominent officer of the Derg, the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991...

, made a speech which won him the support of the members of the Derg. LaFort observes that "above all he [Mengistu] seems to have been one of the very few to propose a coherent and energetic line of action in debates which were, to say the least, confused and long winded in a style which went down well with this assembly of NCOs and other ranks." Mengistu then proposed that the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Derg be elected by secret ballot, a move Atnafu opposed but was over-ruled; the result of the election put Mengistu at the head of the Derg with Atnafu as his deputy.

Over the next few years, general opinion believed that the two officers -- Atnafu and Mengistu -- were engaged in a bitter rivalry for control of the shadowy Derg. "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." He directed 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

Eritrean War of Independence

The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean separatists, both before and during the Ethiopian Civil War. The war started when Eritrea’s autonomy within Ethiopia, where troops were already stationed, was unilaterally revoked...

. However, when that effort, known as Operation Raza, 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.

Atnafu avoided the infamous Derg meeting of 3 February 1977, where a number of Derg leaders, including chairman Lieutenant General Tafari Benti

Tafari Benti

Brigadier General Tafari Benti was the Head of State of Ethiopia , and chairman of the Derg, the ruling junta. His official title was Chairman of the Provisional Military Administrative Council.- Life :...

, were killed in an ambush orchestrated by Mengistu, having left the capital to personally present a flag to a militia unit that had completed its training. This coup left Atnafu the sole remaining Derg member with a measure of independence from Mengistu. Most experts believe that Atnafu's days were numbered, and his execution that November was inevitable. "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."

However, LaFort presents an intriguing dissenting opinion on the dynamics linking these events. First he presents a portrait of Atnafu as having become exhausted with his responsibilities. LaFort elaborates:

Three and a half years of revolution had physically worn him to the bone. The man who had entered the picture books of the revolution with raised fist and contorted face had become one who simply asked: pax. he advocated internal reconciliation: the ending of all terrors, 'White' and 'Red', extending the hand to both the EPRP and MEISON, external relations that were more balanced between the two great powers (he seems to have sounded out the United States about this during September) -- and pacifying the army by satisfying its main demands.

Although public rumor had it that tensions between the two men was so high that Atnafu had to undergo a close search before entering Mengistu's offices, LaFort reminds us that since he was put in charge of the militia late the previous year,Atnafu had no longer posed a danger to Mengistu, writing that "Atnafu had quite clearly abandoned the pursuit of power to a technical task, the raising, organization, and training of the militia." Pointing out that Mengistu had left the final meeting which ended with Atnafu's death before the decision had been made, and that Mengistu had fought for Atnafu as long as he could without putting himself in danger, LaFort argues that Atnafu's execution "appears as a sacrifice, offered up on the altar of defeat in need of a scapegoat, the price of the apparent compromise reached between the Derg, the regular army and the various factions within the latter."