Abiye Abebe | |
Office: | Minister of Defence |
Term: | 28 February 1974 – 22 July 1974 |
Primeminister: | Endelkachew Makonnen |
Predecessor: | Merid Mengesha |
Successor: | Aman Andom |
Office2: | President of the Senate |
Term2: | 15 July 1964 – 28 February 1974 |
Monarch2: | Haile Selassie I |
Predecessor2: | Le'ul Ras Asrate Kassa |
Successor2: | Legislature abolished |
Office3: | Governor-General of Eritrea[1] Chief Administrator (1960–1962) Chief Executive (1959–1960) |
Term3: | 20 May 1959 – 12 February 1964 |
Monarch3: | Haile Selassie I |
Predecessor3: | Bitwoded Asfaha Woldemikael as Chief Executive |
Successor3: | Le'ul Ras Asrate Kassa |
Father: | Liqa Mequas Abebe Atnaf Seggad |
Birth Date: | 1917 |
Birth Place: | Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Empire |
Death Place: | Akaki Central Prison, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia |
Spouse: | Princess Tsehai Haile-Selassie Woizero Amarech Nasibu |
Native Name Lang: | am |
Lij Abiye Abebe (Amharic: አብይ አበበ; born 1917 - 23 November 1974) was an Ethiopian politician and son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie.
Son of Liqa Mequas Abebe Atnaf Seggad, Abiye was born 1918 in Addis Ababa as a Lij. He attended the Holeta Military Academy.[2] In the 1940s and 1950s he was Minister of Defence, and later served as Minister of Justice and Minister of the Interior.[3] He chaired the High National Security Commission during the Ethiopian Revolution until his arrest by the Derg on 16 July 1974.[4] Lt. General Abiye was serving as Chief of the General Staff when he was arrested.
According to John Spencer, when Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold sought to resign his post in 1973, he suggested to the Emperor that he be replaced by General Abiye. Other sources indicate that Aklilu Habte-Wold's rival Prince Asrate Kassa was the person who put General Abiye forward as a fellow aristocrat. However Abiye consented to becoming Prime Minister only if his nomination, and those of his cabinet, were approved by the Ethiopian parliament, a condition Emperor Haile Selassie found unacceptable. As a result, Haile Selassie decided to appoint Endelkachew Makonnen Prime Minister instead.[5] Abiye was one of 60 former government officials executed the night of 22–23 November at Akaki Central Prison by the Derg.[6]
General Abiye was married three times. At Addis Ababa, on 26 April 1942, he married Princess Tsehai of Ethiopia who died in childbirth a year later. After this marriage, Lt. General Abiye Abebe was accorded the dignities and protocol rank of the Emperor's son-in-law, even after he remarried. In 1946, married Woizero Amarech Nasibu, daughter of Nasibu Zeamanuel, and then in 1970 to Woizero Tsige Aynalem, his widow, with whom he had three chlildren, Phebe, Berkinesh, and Abiye.[7]