Aman Andom

There is some evidence that indicates he had contacts with the officers of the junta as early as February and March 1974, but by July he was appointed chief of staff to the military junta. On September 15, three days after the junta removed the Emperor Haile Selassie from his palace to imprisonment at the headquarters of the Fourth Division, this group appointed Aman their chairman and head of state of Ethiopia. At the same time, this group of soldiers assumed the name "Provisional Military Administrative Council" (Derg).

As an Eritrean, General Aman found himself fiercely at odds with the majority of the Derg. He wanted to negotiate a peaceful settlement; his opponents hoped to crush the ELF by military force. Aman went as far as making two personal visits to Eritrea—the first 25 August to 6 September 1974, the second in November 1974—giving speeches stating that the end of the Imperial regime was also the end of old practices towards Eritrea, that a government dedicated to national unity and progress would restore peace and prosperity to Eritrea, and lastly that he would begin investigations concerning crimes that the army had perpetrated on Eritreans and punish the guilty.

However, at the same time the Derg had begun the task of eliminating opponents within the military. The three significant units were the Imperial Bodyguard, the Air Force and the Corps of Engineers; of the three, the most recalcitrant were the Engineers. So on 7 October 1974 soldiers loyal to the Derg stormed the engineers' camp, killing five, wounding several and detaining the rest. As Bahru Zewde observation he said that, "With that, the illusion that the revolution would remain bloodless was exploded."

General Aman responded with a personal campaign to seek support outside the Derg, among the rest of the army and the country where he was popular. On 15 November 1974, he sent a message to all military units that was highly critical of the Derg. During a general assembly of the Derg two days later, Mengistu Haile Mariam demanded that 5,000 men be dispatched to Eritrea and six imprisoned Imperial officials be executed; Aman refused, resigned his official posts and retired to his house where he secretly sent appeals to his supporters, especially those in the Third Division. But Mengistu managed to intercept these appeals.

On 23 November 1974, Aman died in a battle in his home with several troops sent there to arrest him. That same night, the political prisoners that the Derg had marked for execution were taken from Menelik prison, where they had been held, and shifted to the Akaki Central Prison to be executed instead and buried in a mass grave. "It appears that the general had outlived his usefulness," Bahru Zewde concludes, and was in fact becoming an obstacle to the Derg's exercise of power.

Educated in Sudan, Aman returned to Ethiopia with the British forces who defeated the Italians and restored Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne. He proceeded to distinguish himself in a brilliant military career, commanding Ethiopian contingents in Korea and the Congo. In 1962 he was promoted to major general. During the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War he was given the nickname the "Desert Lion" after defeating Somali forces in the Ogaden

Aman Mikael Andom (Amharic: አማን ሚካኤል አንዶም, romanized: āman mīka’ēl āndom; Tigrinya: ኣማን ሚካኤል ዓንዶም; 21 June 1924 – 23 November 1974) was an Eritrean general and the first post-imperial acting head of state of Ethiopia. He was appointed to this position following the coup d'état that ousted Emperor Haile Selassie on 12 September 1974, and served until his death in a shootout with his former supporters.