Ethiopian plight
Sir: Your condemnation of the new military rulers of Ethiopia (February 15) is thoroughly justified by recent events. At the same time, the circumstances which brought the regime into power were largely the result of the incompetence, venality and lack of foresight which characterised Haile Salassie's government. A famine which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people — and whose effects could have been alleviated had the former Ethiopian government acted when it became aware of the facts — cannot be dismissed in such phrases as "Progress was thus, under Haile Sellassie, a very gradual business."
The tragedy of Ethiopia was that the previous • system could not cope with the fundamental problems of running a country, satisfying even basic human needs and building self-sustaining institutions. The present horrifying situation is a direct legacy from that, not a moral object "lesson to those who would seek to change long-established and traditionally based. systems of government." The ancien regime destroyed itself. All that the young revolutionary soldiers are doing is to prove that they, too, do not understand their own country and the tragic
complexity of the problems it has always faced.
Former Ethiopian resident (Name and address withheld in particular circumstances)
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