![[ img ]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30160401/AU/Ethiopia-class%201979.png)
The Ethiopia-class after 1979 rebuild. Out of the sixteen ships of the class (P-301 and P-303 were re-ordered in 1974, bring the total number
built to eighteen), only twelve underwent the refit, with P-311 through P-315 being sold to the Kenyans. The armament of the 1979 Ethiopia class is much heavier and more complex than the previous generation, but by now Ethiopia was developing the capability to maintain complex technology on its own, much like South Korea.
Ethiopia on the Eve of Haile Selassie I's Death
As early as 1965, Haile Selassie I was making plans for his successor. Already seventy-three years of age, he was getting wearier and frailer every year, a mere shadow of his days as a young and brilliant general in fighting Queen Zewditu's reactionaries in and Italian fascists. His son, who would become Amha Selassie I but now still
Leul (Prince) Asfaw Wossen Taffari, was already of middle age. Asfaw was already one of the Emperor's chief diplomats, and a staunch ally of the liberals in the Dergs, and until his debilitating stroke in 1973, was assuming more and more of the administrative duties of the King of Kings. When the stroke left him quadriplegic, paralyzed on one side, and with a speech impediment, his son, the young Zera Yacob (later Emperor Zera Yacob II) began to be groomed by both father and grandfather as the
de facto heir to the throne, as all reached the conclusion that any reign of Asfaw would be short-lived. The disability of the immediate heir, and the liberal tendencies of House Solomonid would radically change Ethiopian society once Halie Selassie passed in 1982 at the age of ninety and fifty-two years as the King of Kings.
Meanwhile, the Dergs began to come onto their own. Their quick action saved Wello province from a famine in 1974, and active prime ministers such as the thirteen-year term of Aklilu Habte-Wold and his alliance of commoner "technocrats," the UNCTAD veteran--and well-known socialist--Mikael Imru began a series of public works and organized the aforementioned famine relief. The opening of the lower houses of the Derg to popular sovereignty allowed the Ethiopian peoples their first experience in democracy, and managed it quite well compared to the failed and shattered "republics" lying all over Africa.
Economically, the Ethiopians were about to hit their stride. The hydroelectric projects on the Blue Nile gave rise to a small class of electrical engineers in the early fifties, who studied at American universities in what would become Silicon Valley. The second computer in Africa was at Addis Ababa in 1953, an IBM "electrical tabulator" like the one shipped to South Africa the year before. Supplied with the mineral wealth of Sub-Saharan Africa and Western expertise, the Ethiopian telecommunications industry could boom in the decade to come, along with the rest of the most modern economy in Africa.
It would be folly, however, to think that all was well within the Empire. The root of the unease could be summed up thus: Ethiopia was still an absolute monarchy (albeit an arguably benevolent and enlightened despotism), in a world where kings and empires were simply viewed as unacceptable and out of date. Many of the regional governments of the Empire were governed by the Mesafint--the old landed aristocracy, with ancient bloodlines and conservative bent, backed by many influential members of the Orthodox Church. They were opposed to the Mekwanint, the appointed nobles who held more power at the Imperial court. They did not enjoy the "invasion of Abyssinia" by the Western corporations, and their declining status in comparison to the upstarts in Addis Ababa. The growing Communist movement got ideas from the 1960 coup attempt and began agitating the nascent Ethiopian working class to seize the Western factories and topple the monarchy, and it was a fact that they had infiltrated the army, and only the pressure of other commanders kept the most powerful Communist in the army, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in line. Nationalist and patriot movements, such as the Eritreans and the Ogaden Somalis, still waged a secret war against police and army, supplied by the USSR and its allies, China, the Islamic Republics of Iran and Yemen, and Somalia and its allies in Oman. Nevermind the fact that several of these states had a score to settle with Ethiopia itself, the Empire had its hands full trying to keep the various sources of unrest within its subjects in control.
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I feel sorry for you, I agree you must have such terrible life, and no girl give you attention, The boys leaved because they were not having a safe feeling when beeing with you. Police never found you. Docters did suidice, because they where impressed you was not killed by birth
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)