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Brigadier General Tafari Benti (; 11 October 1921 – 3 February 1977) was an Ethiopian
military officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent contex ...
and politician who served as head of state of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
from 1974 to 1977 in his role as second chairman of the
Derg The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...
, the ruling
military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain ...
. His official title was Chairman of the Provisional Military Administrative Council.


Early life and career

Tafari Benti was born near
Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...
to an Oromo father and an Amhara mother. He joined the
Ethiopian Army The Ethiopian Ground Forces () is the land service branch of the Ethiopian National Defense Force. It is senior of the two uniformed military branches. It engages in land warfare and combined arms operations, including armored and mechanized ...
at the age of 20, graduated from the Holetta Military Academy, and served in the Second, Third and Fourth Divisions of the army.Marina and David Ottaway, ''Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution'' (New York: Africana, 1978), p. 134 In 1967, he served as a
military attaché A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Oppo ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
where he and several other Ethiopian colleagues suffered from racial discrimination. On 23 November 1974, Lt. General Aman Mikael Andom, the first chairman of the Derg and acting head of state, who had been in a struggle for power with the other members of the
Derg The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...
, was killed in a shootout at his home.
Mengistu Haile Mariam Mengistu Haile Mariam ( am, መንግሥቱ ኀይለ ማሪያም, pronunciation: ; born 21 May 1937) is an Ethiopian politician and former army officer who was the head of state of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991 and General Secretary of the Wo ...
served as interim chairman until the Derg appointed Tafari to the position. He had been serving as brigadier general in the Fourth Division, which was stationed in
Asmara Asmara ( ), or Asmera, is the capital and most populous city of Eritrea, in the country's Central Region. It sits at an elevation of , making it the sixth highest capital in the world by altitude and the second highest capital in Africa. The c ...
, at the time of his appointment.


Tenure

During his tenure, Tafari presented himself as the public face of the ruling junta. According to the Ottaways, while at first, he was "a neutral and powerless figure", in the end "he was too colorless, soft-spoken, and undemonstrative to be the figurehead of the revolution." However, according to Rene LaFort's account, Tafari offered some hints that he supported those opposed to Mengistu. One such hint was in July 1975, when in a public speech he made overtures to the civilian left—groups which included the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and MEISON—proposing a united front "of all the forces that rejected the ''ancient regime'', built from the base, that is from the mass organizations born of the great reforms"; LaFort points out that this was "a strategy which Mengistu Haile Mariam and his supporters opposed and would continue to oppose more and more resolutely." He repeated this message in a speech on the first anniversary of the deposition of Emperor Haile Selassie. During his mandate, he constituted the public face of the Government Board, delivering the public announcements of the Derg. Among which was an announcement made on 11 September 1975, in which the Derg declared it would create a political party to support its objectives aligned with the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspape ...
. During his government, in March 1975, the monarchy would finally be officially abolished, proclaiming its replacement by a socialist government of Marxist-Leninist inspiration. Over the following months, according to LaFort the Derg was split over irreconcilable objectives: "How could the authority of the Committee be strengthened while avoiding the dangers of authoritarianism, and how could the principles of collegiality be maintained while gaining maximum benefit from a concentration of power?" And behind this split was concern at Mengistu's growing power. To end this split, the Derg set up a committee chaired by Captain Mogus Wolde Mikael to reform the Derg's structure. After nine weeks of what LaFort describes as "strenuous internal negotiations", on 29 December 1976 Tafari delivered a speech, announcing that the Derg had been restructured. The reorganization limited Mengistu's powers and sent his supporters out of the capital to positions in the countryside; on the other hand, two of the key architects of this reform, Captain Mogus and Captain Almayahu Haile, were appointed to powerful positions. His enemies had thought they had clipped Mengistu's wings and had removed him as a threat. Tafari went even further and, flanked by Captains Mogus and Almayahu, criticized the lack of a
vanguard party Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form org ...
in words which LaFort interprets as declaring "the bloody war between MEISON and the EPRP to be politically unjustifiable, and that it should, in any case, remain limited to the civilian Left without the army intervening in any way." In 1976, open clashes between members of the two largest Marxist-Leninist organizations began in the country. They grew into the murders of supporters of Mengistu and government employees. Thus, trade union leaders Theodoros Bekel and Themeslin Medé were killed. In September 1976, EPRP members made an assassination attempt on Mengistu himself, which enraged the latter.


Death

Despite this apparent setback, Mengistu proved to be far more resourceful than his opponents believed. He conspired with his longtime friend and ally Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Asfaw to round up Tafari and other Derg members suspected of conspiring with the EPRP. During a routine meeting on 3 February 1977, Tafari and the other Derg members suspected of conspiring with the EPRP were arrested by soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Daniel. According to the memoirs of Fikre Selassie Wogderess, they were then led into a dark garage located in the compound and locked up. Fikre Selassie was also present at the meeting and was mistakenly arrested along with Tafari and the other suspect Derg members. However, Daniel arrived at the garage in time and released Fikre before the
summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes inclu ...
of the others. Shortly thereafter soldiers armed with automatic weapons and silencers arrived and assassinated Tafari and the suspect Derg members: Lieutenant Alemayehu Haile, Captain Mogus Wolde Michael, Corporal Hailu Belay, Lieutenant Colonel Asrat Desta, Lieutenant Colonel Hiruy Haile Selassie and Captain Tefera Deneke. Later, in the evening, a shootout opened in the same compound by another suspected EPRP conspirator Major Yohannes Tiku, where he killed Lieutenant Colonel Daniel and Senay Likke. Major Yohannes was also killed in the shootout. Shortly afterwards, Radio Ethiopia broadcast a charge by Mengistu that Tafari and his associates had been killed because they were secret supporters of the EPRP. Mengistu claimed he had discovered a 47-page master plan in Tafari's possession, which detailed how the EPRP would replace the "scientific socialism" of the Derg."And Then There Were Sixty"
''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' 14 February 1977 (accessed 14 May 2009)


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tafari Benti 1921 births 1977 deaths Presidents of Ethiopia Deaths by firearm in Ethiopia Ethiopian communists Communist rulers People of the Eritrean War of Independence Leaders ousted by a coup 1977 murders in Ethiopia category:Oromo people People of the Ethiopian Civil War Military attachés