Like many African nations, Ethiopia has had much recent (nineteenth and twentieth century) political turmoil and it began with an attempted Italian invasion in 1895. The invasion was put down however there was still a lot of Italian resistance within Ethiopia. Haile Selassie took the thrown in 1930 but lost control in 1935 when Italy finally succeeded in invading Ethiopia. Ethiopia was later liberated by the British in 1941, and Selassie was returned to the thrown. In1952 Ethiopia was enlarged due to the addition of Eritrea, a country bordering Ethiopia, ten years later however, Eritrea was annexed. In 1974 Selassie's government was overthrown by a Socialist government which was headed by Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, who named himself authoritarian president.
Menigistu's regime started to have problems when secessionist movements were started in Ogaden, an area in southwestern Ethiopia and in Eritrea which is inhabited by people who speak Somali. Rebel groups put up a lot of resistance and in 1978, Somalia invaded Ethiopia, to no avail, in hopes of gaining the Ogaden area. It is important to know that Ethiopia was supported financially by the Soviet Union and Cuba during the fight for the Ogaden because Mengistu's government controlled the country as a Socialist one, following very closely to the Soviet example. By ruling Ethiopia in this way, Menigistu led his country to a famine.
About 90% of crops in Ethiopia are produced on peasant farms, but despite this fact most of the government funding under the Menigistu regime went to state farms. In 1984 northern Ethiopia was facing it's first serious famine, and Menigistu's response was to move 500,000 peasants to the south, and he did so at times with force. Of course the only thing this proved was that the south could not handle feeding 500,000 more people and so eventually people were forced into moving to new villages. Farmers had to start all over again and therefore the production of agriculture decreased. However the intentions of all of this shifting around may not have been in the interests of the people. Many rebel groups were formed against Menigistu's government and while thousands were worrying about where their next meal was coming from, Menigistu was worrying about the civil war that was going on. In February of 1983, in an area of north Ethiopia that had the largest production rate, a military offensive was launched. This is the true reason why the peasants were moved, not because the government wanted to help them, but because Menigistu wanted to keep his job. Not only was the displacement of the people a problem, but the government imposed strict trading laws that kept food from being passed freely within the country. Even more appalling is the fact that for a while the government refused to event admit that there was a famine and officials stole food from their own people. One could say that the government was a leading cause in the famine of 1983-1985 which killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The government in Ethiopia is now a democratic one, rebels were finally able to collapse the government of Menigistu in 1991 and the current leader is Zenawi.