Ethiopia

B

Legislature

Ethiopia’s bicameral (two-chambered) parliament consists of an upper house, the House of Federation, and a lower house, the House of People’s Representatives. The 108 members of the House of Federation are nominated by regional councils. The House of People’s Representatives consists of a maximum of 550 directly elected members; at least 20 of these representatives must be members of minority ethnic groups.

C

Local Government

Ethiopia is made up of nine regions, most with a distinct ethnic majority. Each region has a regional council that may establish lower levels of jurisdiction to allow people to participate in self-government.

D

Judiciary

The Ethiopian judicial system consists of federal and regional branches. The Federal Supreme Court has final jurisdiction over federal cases. Regional supreme courts have jurisdiction over regional concerns, with ultimate jurisdiction of regional matters administered by a Federal High Court. Regional supreme courts may also serve as federal first-instance courts. Federal judges are nominated by the prime minister and appointed after approval by the House of People’s Representatives.

E

Defense

The Ethiopian National Defense Force consists of an army and an air force. In 2006 about 150,000 soldiers were in the army, and about 2,500 personnel were in the air force.

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VI

History

The kingdom known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Ethiopia was in fact centered in what is now Sudan. Its capitals were Napata and, later, Meroë. The tradition that the biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem in ancient Israel is supported by the 1st century ad Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. The ancient Aksum (Axum) Kingdom, ancestor of modern Ethiopia, was founded by Semitic-speaking immigrants from southern Arabia who landed in about 1000 bc on the northeastern African coast. They established bases on the northern highlands of the Ethiopian Plateau and from there expanded southward. The chief historical and archaeological records of the Aksum Kingdom date from 150 bc to ad 600. The conversion of the country to Christianity took place during the reign of King Ezana in the 4th century ad. According to traditional accounts, Frumentius, a Syrian who was named bishop of Ethiopia by Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt, played a major role in the conversion. The foundation was then laid for the dependence of the Ethiopian Church upon the Egyptian Coptic Church, which the Ethiopian Church followed by accepting the Monophysite belief that Jesus Christ was solely divine, not both human and divine. This was the basis for the schism in Christianity that took place at the Council of Chalcedon in ad 451.

In the early 6th century King Kaleb of Aksum intervened in south Arabia, claiming to avenge the persecution of local Christians, probably by their Jewish rulers. Nevertheless, Jewish influence seems to have penetrated Ethiopia at about this time; it left an important mark on Ethiopia’s religious customs, and some Aksumites were converted to the Jewish faith. The remnant of these converts, the Beta Israel, also known as Falashas, of northern Ethiopia, immigrated to Israel in the late 20th century. Although the Aksumite ruler Armah gave asylum to the first disciples of the Prophet Muhammad when they were persecuted in Arabia in the 7th century, the rise of Islam led to the isolation of the Aksumite empire. However, many of the country’s rulers sought to forge ties with Western Christendom.

Ethiopian tradition holds that the imperial family is descended from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The succession is said to have been broken for a couple of centuries or so during the Zagwe usurpation, which ended in the 13th century when a king of Shewa claiming true descent succeeded in restoring the Solomonian line. There followed a period of religious and cultural revival in which royal chronicles were written and considerable ecclesiastical literature was developed, the most notable work being the Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings), which contains an account of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Jerusalem.

In the latter part of the 15th century a handful of Portuguese and other Europeans found their way into Ethiopia, seeking the legendary Christian kingdom in the East whose monarch was known as Prester John. Portugal hoped to find in this kingdom a possible ally against Islam and the rising power of the Ottomans. Following the devastating Muslim attacks upon Ethiopia that had their beginning in 1527 and were led by the great Ahmad Grañ of Hārer, also known as Harar, the emperor appealed to Portugal for aid. Christopher da Gama, the son of Vasco da Gama, landed at Massawa in 1541 with 400 men but was killed with most of his soldiers in a battle with the enemy. Subsequently a new army equipped with firearms—previously a monopoly of Grañ—was built up with the cooperation of the remaining Portuguese, and in 1543 Grañ’s forces were routed and their leader killed.

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