Derg

The Derg, Common Derg or Dergue is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987. It took power following the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Soon after it was established, the committee was formally renamed the Provisional Military Administrative Council, but continued to be known popularly as "the Derg". In 1975, it embraced communism as an ideology; it remained in power until 1987. Between 1975 and 1987, the Derg executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of its opponents without trial. In 1987 Mengistu Haile Mariam abolished the Derg, establishing the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. After years of warfare by a coalition of ethnic-based parties, Mengistu was overthrown in 1991.

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