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Ethiopian Air Force in Politics

Military analysts generally considered the air force competent. Apart from its performance as a military unit, the air force was often involved in anti-government activities. By 1974 the Air Force appeared have more Tigrean / Eritrean representation than average because it attracted the more skill-oriented northerners. As would be expected, the level of education and political consciousness higher among air force ranked higher than the rest of nation. These cultural factors rather than ethnic background per se probably made for greater radicalism in Air Force. Participation in February/March 1974 events by non-Amharas in or out of military, related primarily to general concerns for their own economic betterment and for broad reform and only subsidiarily to ethnic advantages or attitudes.

The Ethiopian Air Force had been a focus of radicalism throughout the Ethiopian revolution and by 1975 some of its leading lights inside and outside the Dirg (e.g. Capt. Sissaye Habte, chairman of Dirg political subcommittee and member of the dirg's inner core, as well as the EAF director of operations, Col. Berhanu) were known to be in the forefront of the faction which advocated an active search for alternatives to the American military connection.

In May 1989, several senior air force officers participated in a coup attempt against Mengistu. The purge that followed this action decimated the service's leadership ranks. Mengistu not only replaced many senior officers but also temporarily grounded the air force. Within a few weeks, the combat victories of the rebels forced Mengistu to rescind his grounding order. By 1991 it was evident that the air force was suffering from low morale and that internal divisions continued to plague its units.

After the 2005 national elections the Ethiopian military conducted a major purge of over 1,000 mostly Oromo officers from the military on ethnically based suspicion of their loyalty to the ethnic Tigrayan-led ruling party. Alemshet Degiffe, an Oromo Major-General, was purged in 2006 while serving as commander of the Ethiopian Air Force. Alemshet was "purged" from the Ethiopian military in the fall-out of the 2005 national elections because he was Oromo and that the government, particularly Chief of Defense (CHOD) General Samora, wanted him out.

Although Alemshet had supported Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles in the 2001 split in the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) Central Committee, he had also been a supporter of ousted CHOD Lieutenant General Tsadkan and that Samora had never forgiven him for that. After the 2005 elections, the government accused him of conspiring with the political opposition and claimed he was the leader of opposition activities within the military. Alemshet insisted that he had no contact with the opposition and to this day had no contact with them.

The Ethiopian Air Force in recent times suffered with a series of high profile defections of its qualified manpower as well as inventory of its military aircraft. More than 40 members of the troubled Ethiopian Air Force reportedly fled the country in July 2015. A number of staff members from the Debre Zeyit Air force headquarters along with 14 aircraft technicians and unspecified number of pilots didn’t show up for work for the past one month. The technicians were from the transport and tactical helicopter squadron unit, Su-27 fighter jets units and An-12 transporter units.

At the beginning of 2015, four Air force pilots, namely, MIG-23 fighter jet pilot Captain Gezakegn Derese; MI-35 Helicopter pilot Captain Daniel Girma; MI-35 Helicopter pilot Lieutenant Masresha Sette, and MI-35 Helicopter pilot Bruk Atnae, defected to Kenya.

On October 2014, a group of Eight pilots crossed the Eritrean border flying unspecified number of aircrafts and claim for asylum. A similar defection of three high ranking pilots also happened at the end of December 2014 flying a sophisticated MI-35 helicopter gunship to Eritrea. In 2005, Seven air force pilots who were on training in Israel defected and claimed asylum at the Eritrean embassy in Israel.

These waves of defections were telling signs that the Ethiopian government’s reliance on ethnic based policies and coercive institutions to continue its grip on power are reaching their limits.