Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold (; 12 March 1912 – 23 November 1974) was an Ethiopian statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie I from 1961 to 1974 until his resignation due to the civil and military unrest brought by the student youth uprising and internal pressures of the soon to come military junta. He previously served as foreign minister before his premiership from 1943 to 1958. He was described leading the position of "Minister of the Pen" an ex-officio title due to his role as prime minister and handling all the practical leadership roles in the Ethiopian Empire.
Aklilu studied at Paris-Sorbonne University from 1931 to 1936, where he obtained a Licence en Droit, a Diplôme de Doctorat en Droit Public, a Diplôme de Doctorat en Economie, a Certificat d'Etudes Supérieures Commerciales, and a Certificate in Political Science. Later following the end of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia thus prompting his return to Ethiopia. He was appointed foreign minister by Emperor Haile Selassie I to serve under then Prime Minister Makonnen Endelkachew later Prime Minister Abebe Aregai who was assassinated in the failed 1960 coup later replacing him as Prime Minister officially in 1961 following Ethiopia's first election during the 1961 Ethiopian general election implemented from the new 1955 Constitution. As foreign minister Aklilu signed the charter of the United Nations making Ethiopia one of the only independent African states who founded the institute.
He led the efforts of building Ethiopian diplomacy during his time as the foreign minister and repairing the relations between post-fascism led Italy. Ethiopia's was placed in the global sphere as a politically neutral state, in the pre-Non-Aligned Movement era, towards the United States, the Soviet Union, and other aligned countries while still fostering relations between aligned nations.
After becoming Prime Minister due to the death of his predecessor he becomes the first non-feudal and democratically elected person from a poor background later educated who became prime minister and thus serving the second highest office in the land. During his first term passing on to his next term after winning the 1965 general election he imposed a highly unpopular tax policy (head tax) a revolt started nonetheless the long-fought Somali backed terrorist Bale revolt from 1963 to 1970 through the support of the United States and United Kingdom was ultimately stopped. After winning his third and last term following his election victory in the 1969 general election having the highest turnout of about 3.4 million voters following his previous election shifted the monarch as the leader who mainly represented Ethiopia out of country while he handled economic policy and domestic and legislative affairs in parliament and the country as a whole. He failed numerous times to implement land reform and couldn't secure enough parliamentary votes for his efforts to redistribute feudal-owned land to the broader population.
Following the 1973 oil crisis and the student revolts, Aklilu resigned as prime minister. He was replaced by Endelkachew Makonnen, but both were later both executed without due process or any judicial trial by the military junta in 1974, known as the Massacre of the Sixty or Black Saturday. He died at the age of 62.
Aklilu is often praised by later Ethiopian diplomats for his for front diplomacy as foreign minister and his transition of an aristocratic society to a transitional semi-democratic landscape.
Life Aklilu Habte-Wold was the youngest son of Aleqa Habtawald Habtenah, a clergyman at Qeddus Raguyel church in Addis Ababa, and wayzaro Yadagdegu Felfelu; both parents were originally from Bulga in Shewa Province. He and his brothers, Makonnen Habte-Wold and Akalework Habte-Wold benefited from the patronage of Emperor Haile Selassie, who had them educated. Aklilu Habte-Wold attended the French lycée in Alexandria from 1925, graduating in 1931, then proceeded to Paris to study at the Sorbonne.Bahru Zewde, Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia (Oxford: James Currey, 2002), p. 82
Upon returning to Ethiopia, Aklilu became the protégé of the powerful Tsehafi Taezaz ("Minister of the Pen") Wolde Giyorgis Wolde Yohannes, another man of humble birth, who had become a powerful figure in Ethiopian government, and a close advisor to the Emperor, with his appointment as Tsehafi Taezaz. Wolde Giyorgis recommended the sons of Habte-Wold to the Emperor, who promoted them through the ranks so that the two eldest, Makonnen and Aklilu, became particularly influential with the monarch. Their humble origins, and the fact that they owed their education and advancement solely to the Emperor, allowed Emperor Haile Selassie to trust them implicitly and to favor them and other commoners of humble origin in government appointments and high positions at the expense of the aristocracy, whose loyalty to his person, rather than to the institution of Emperor he suspected. The Emperor's preference for such men as Aklilu Habte-Wold over the high nobles created resentment among the aristocracy, who believed they were being displaced by these new western educated "technocrats".
Foreign Minister
Post War
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Having graduated from the Sorbonne in 1936, Aklilu began his career as Press Attaché at the Ethiopian Legation in Paris and was subsequently promoted to Secretary before becoming chargé d'affaires. When Ethiopia was defeated in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Aklilu Habte-Wold was in France with his brother Makonnen; upon the defection of the head of the Ethiopian legation to France, Blatengeta Wolde Mariyam Ayele, Aklilu was made chargé d'affaires.Haile Selassie, My Life and Ethiopia's Progress, translated by Harold Marcus (Chicago: Frontline, 1999), vol. 2 p. 47 Aklilu lived in Paris and married a French woman, Collette Valade. With the fall of Paris in June 1940, Aklilu managed to escape on a forged passport, and with the help of the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs he was able to reach Cairo.John Spencer, Ethiopia at Bay: A personal account of the Haile Selassie years (Algonac: Reference Publications, 1984), p. 80 Following the restoration in 1941, Aklilu served for two years as Vice-Minister in the Ministry of the Pen before being appointed to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October 1943. He subsequently served as a representative to the Paris Peace Conference after the end of World War II. During this time, Aklilu played a key role in the complex process that brought Eritrea into federation with Ethiopia after the newly created United Nations was formed, while he was the ambassador representing Ethiopia to the UN.
Foreign Minister
Eritrea
After serving as chargé d'affaires and then as Vice-Minister in the Ministry of the Pen, Aklilu was appointed to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Ras Makonnen Endelkachew in October 1943, initially serving as Vice-Minister for the first six years before becoming full Minister, until November 1957 where he successfully federated the former colony of Eritrea towards Ethiopia. Managing the extraction of British soldiers from Eritrea and the handover of practical administration towards the Ethiopian government. Formally this happened when the newly formed United Nations under a unanimous voted for Eritrea reunification to Ethiopia after Emperor Menelik II's deposal of former Ethiopian territory towards Italy. In 1955 he gave a speech to the United Nations on the 10th general assembly in New York in French where he stated his belief that although Ethiopia would "modestly" contribute to the organization and endeavor of peace it will still play a vital and fundamental role in its overall mission.
Aklilu personally opposed the dissolution of the federation when the Eritrean National Assembly voted to dissolve it in November 1962, making Eritrea a province of Ethiopia. In the second half of the 1960s, however, when his chief rival in Ethiopian politics, ras Asrate Kassa, served as governor of Eritrea, Aklilu supported a firm line against Eritrean separatists. United Kingdom In 1944 he was able to negotiate the replacement of the 1942 Anglo-Ethiopian agreement with the British government placed in after the defeat of the Italians in 1941. And the relocation of the National Bank of Ethiopia from London, England to the capital, Addis Ababa. Aklilu came to an agreement with the British colonial government creating boundaries with Ethiopia and Kenya officially in 1947.
United States On May 29 of 1954 Aklilu accompanied with other senior Ethiopian government officials visited the White House where he met with U.S president Dwight D. Eisenhower in the particular interests of getting loans and U.S backed financing for the local Ethiopian economy and American investment. The only task was U.S approval from the Congress since Ethiopia's 1931 constitution didn't practically give any powers to the legislatures as the 1955 constitution which drastically reduced the Emperor's power and the chief executive ministers. He went to Princeton University where he visited the Ivy university with senior officials of the cabinet.
France
He signed under the behalf of Prime Minister Makonnen Endelkachew with the TWA an agreement which created the now multibillion dollar company, Ethiopian Airlines in 1945. In 1946 with France, he was able to get a deal in regard to the end of pure French control between the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway towards a jointly operated rail. He attended the Paris Peace conference were participated in regard to the war crimes committed in modern day Eritrea and Somalia during World War II by the Italians.
Others He officially started diplomatic channels with the Soviet Union on 21 April 1943 during World War II. He met with the premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev on an official state visit with Emperor Haile Selassie I on the 1959 trip in Moscow. Aklilu also visited Cairo, Egypt where he met with various Egyptian officials including then Foreign Minister later Vice President Mahmoud Fawzi.
In 1956, Aklilu served as a member of the Committee of Five on the Suez Canal crisis, providing diplomatic service in London and Cairo on behalf of Ethiopia.
Prime Minister of Ethiopia (1961-1974)
First Term (1961-1965) Following the fall from favor of Tsehafi Taezaz Wolde Giyorgis in 1958, the Emperor appointed Aklilu to replace him as Tsehafi Taezaz.Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, second edition (London: James Currey, 2003), states that Wolde Giyorgis' fall was due to the efforts of Aklilu's older brother, Makonnen (p. 205). In April 1961, four months after the previous prime minister Abebe Aragai had been killed in a failed coup, the office of prime minister was vacant, following the 1961 Ethiopian general election and Aklilu's victory as the newly elected prime minister, this prompted the Emperor to give him the office of Tshehafi Taezaz while being prime minister giving him Tsehafi Taezaz in his portfolio. These two posts gave Aklilu a level of confidence with the Emperor that no one outside of the Imperial Family shared.
Government factions