Meles Zenawi

Meles Zenawi Asres (Tigringa and መለስ ዜናዊ ኣስረስ;, born Legesse Zenawi Asres (9 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) was an Ethiopian soldier and politician who served as President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and then Prime Minister of Ethiopia from 1995 until his death in 2012.

He then joined the prestigious General Wingate High school in Addis Ababa on full scholarship and completed high school in 1972.

Upon graduating with honors from General Wingate, he was awarded the Haile Selassie I Prize, a selective award given only to the most outstanding students.

The TPLF was one of the armed groups struggling against the Derg, the junta which led Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991.

Born in Adwa to an Ethiopian father and an Eritrean mother, Meles became actively involved in politics after changing his original first name from Legesse to Meles, adopted following the execution of fellow university student Meles Takele by the Derg government in 1975.

In that year, he left Haile Selassie I University to join the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and fight against the Derg (the Mengistu Haile Mariam-led military dictatorship in Ethiopia).

He eventually became better known by his nom de guerre Meles, which he adopted in honor of university student and fellow Tigrayan Meles Tekle who was executed by the Derg government in 1975.

He received primary education at Queen of Sheba Junior High School in Adwa.

Because he started school at age 11 or 12 it took him 5 years to complete the regular 8-year program as he was able to skip grades.

In 1975, Meles left the university to join the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Meles Zenawi was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.

Meles was first with the Tigrayan National Organization (TNO), the forerunner of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Aregawi Berhe, a former member of the TPLF, notes that historians John Young and Jenny Hammond "vaguely indicated" Meles as a founder of the TPLF in their books.

Aregawi insists that both he and Sebhat Nega joined the Front "months" after it was founded.

While a member of the TPLF, Meles established the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT).

Meles was elected member of the leadership committee in 1979 and chairman of the executive committee of TPLF in 1983.

He was the chairperson of both the TPLF and the EPRDF.

In 1989, he became the chairman of the TPLF, and the head of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) after its formation in 1988.

After leading the EPRDF to victory in the Ethiopian Civil War, he served as president of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995, then as the 2nd prime minister of Ethiopia from 1995 to his death in 2012.

Meles Zenawi's administration brought Ethiopia to ethnic federalism; he expressed his populist view that ethnic groups should share their own languages, culture and lands.

After the EPRDF assumed power at the end of the Ethiopian Civil War in 1991.

He was president of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia during which he paved the way for Eritrea to secede from the country.

Meles stated that EPRDF's victory was a triumph for the thousands of TPLF-fighters who were killed, for the millions of Ethiopians who were victims of the country's biggest famine during the Derg regime, when some estimates put up to 1.5 million deaths of Ethiopians from famine and the Red Terror.

Accordingly, he maintained that the big support it received from peasants and rural areas helped EPRDF maintain peace and stability.

Foreign support was diverse; the Arab League, as well as Western nations, supported the EPRDF rebels against the communist Soviet-supported government (although the TPLF was at the time Marxist) at the height of the Cold War.

"What the implications of this will be in terms of relations between Ethiopia and the European Union, we will have to wait and see but I don't think you will be surprised if Ethiopia were to insist that it should not be patronised."

The United States facilitated peace talks between different rebel groups including EPRDF and the Derg to bring an end to the civil war which lasted for nearly 17 years and reach some kind of political settlement in 1991.

The talks did not bear any fruit as EPRDF's force were moving to the capital and Mengistu fled the country.

The United States agreed to support the EPRDF which would have, nevertheless, seized power without anyone's support.

An Eritrean referendum was held during his four-year presidency, which resulted in Eritrean secession from Ethiopia in 1993, but the two countries entered into a war owing to the territorial dispute from 1998 to 2000, during which 98,217 people were killed.

In the 2005 general election, Meles's party EPRDF won and he remained as prime minister, while opposition parties strongly complained that the election was "stolen" and unfair.

Shortly during and after the election, disastrous riots and protests sparked across Addis Ababa, in which 193 people were killed by police brutality.

During his tenure, Ethiopia became one of Africa's fastest-growing economies.

Meles undertook major reforms to the country, including land reforms attempt to reduce serious droughts, school expansions, and agricultural interests.

He died in Brussels on 20 August 2012 from an undisclosed illness.

Some analysts claim that he died from shock due to a confrontation at the G20 conference.

"Zenawism" refers to his principles and policies of ethnic federalism, especially those the TPLF advocated, and is the subject of academic study.

Meles was born in Adwa in northern Ethiopia, to Zenawi Asres, a Tigrayan from Adwa and Alemash Ghebreluel, an Eritrean from Adi Quala.

He was the third of six children.

His first name at birth was Legesse (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge'ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī).