Only the Shadow Rules

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, which still observes a peculiar 13-month calendar all its own, celebrates the feast of Christmas this week. The country could hardly have less to make merry about. Eleven months after the "creeping coup" that resulted in Emperor Haile Selassie's overthrow and imprisonment last September, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest and least literate nations on earth. The average annual income is a pitiful $80, and fewer than 3% of the 26 million Ethiopians can read or write. In the beginning, the 120-man Provisional Military Administrative Council that now rules the country gave promise of democratic reform. Today, after months of mismanagement and unrest, the council--known locally as the Dergue (meaning "shadow" in Amharic, Ethiopia's official language) because most of its members are unknown to the public--is at least as unpopular as the Emperor was.

Rural Regeneration. Almost every group in the feudal country has some kind of grievance. Workers were promised ten months ago that their minimum wages of 500 a day would be doubled; they have still not received the increase. Labor leaders who protested at the delay were quickly slapped into prison. Peasants, who have traditionally paid up to 75% of their crops as rent to landlords, were overjoyed at the promise of land reform; now the rent goes to the state instead of the hated landowner. In fact, under the state socialism proclaimed by the Dergue, peasants will never have a chance to acquire land of their own. Last week a decree imposed state control over virtually all the land in Ethiopia, and nationalization of banks and insurance companies seemed only a prelude to widespread takeovers of private commerce and industry as well.

Even the country's leftist students and teachers, who initially welcomed the coup, are unhappy. The universities have been closed, and 60,000 students have been ordered off to the countryside to teach "reading, writing and rural regeneration" to the peasantry. "We have exchanged feudal tyranny for socialist tyranny," one student recently complained to TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs.

The Dergue's motto--"Ethiopia First"--has been transformed into a growing campaign against all things foreign, and the country's 35,000 foreign residents are noticeably uneasy. Newspaper editorials regularly attack alien imports and ideologies. Last week the state-owned television station was ordered to stop showing Bonanza reruns in favor of "enlightening documentaries" made in China. Foreign women are reluctant to go shopping alone for fear of being jostled, sworn at or spat upon. Beggars have grown more surly and muggings have increased, and certain areas of Addis Ababa have informally been placed off limits to non-Ethiopians.

The Dergue rules the country from the Grand Palace atop one of Addis Ababa's seven hills. The gates and iron fence of the palace are still decorated with imperial designs, but just inside, there are tanks and Jeep-mounted machine guns. "The last time I was inside those gates, little more than a year ago," reports Correspondent Griggs, "pith-helmeted, monkeyskin-clad members of the Imperial Guard handled security, and lackeys in frock coats walked backward, bowing all the while, in the presence of dignitaries. Today those dignitaries are imprisoned in the windowless basement of the Grand Banquet Hall, where Haile Selassie once threw sumptuous banquets for 3,000 people at a time." Haile Selassie, 82, is confined to an apartment in one of the palace buildings. He has agreed in principle to put his vast overseas holdings at the disposal of the people but so far has failed to divulge the amount of his wealth or the Swiss banks that are guarding it.

Stormy Meetings. Brigadier General Teferi Benti is Ethiopia's head of state, but the country's real strongman is Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, 32, who has emerged as the most powerful member of the Dergue. A half-caste member of the Galla tribe, Mengistu, who is said to be an ardent socialist, is identified with a pro-Chinese group within the committee. Foreign observers attach some significance to the fact that when the new Chinese ambassador arrived in Addis Ababa last month, virtually the entire committee turned out to greet him. Nonetheless, the Dergue is said to be split into a number of ideological, religious and tribal factions, and meetings of the committee are often stormy. Most of the members supported Mengistu's decision to execute 59 leading officials of the old regime in late November (TIME, Dec. 9). But many were shocked by Mengistu's action the same night in attacking the home of the Dergue's popular frontman, Lieut. General Aman Michael Andom, provoking a skirmish in which Aman was killed.

The Dergue's most pressing problem at the moment is what to do about the predominantly Moslem northern province of Eritrea, which has been bedeviled by sporadic guerrilla activity ever since it was incorporated into Ethiopia in 1962. The fight for independence is led by the Arab-backed Eritrean Liberation Front, which has 6,000 well-armed fighters in the field. While he was head of state, General Aman, who was himself an Eritrean, tried to solve the problem by granting greater autonomy to the province. Mengistu has bolstered Ethiopian forces in Eritrea and is prepared for a military showdown. His tougher stand triggered a wave of terrorist incidents in both Addis Ababa and the Eritrean capital of Asmara.

The Dergue's dilemma is that it cannot defeat the secessionists militarily, particularly now that they are reinforced with oil money from Libya, Algeria and Kuwait. On the other hand, having so recently deposed Haile Selassie for mismanaging Ethiopia, the Dergue can hardly allow itself to preside over the empire's dissolution. Last week the Dergue announced for the first time that it was willing to negotiate with the secessionists and would accept the offer of Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiry to mediate the twelve-year-old dispute.

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