Aklilu Habte-Wold

Aklilu Habte-Wold was born on March 12, 1912, in Addis Ababa into an ecclesiastical family. Educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, he earned degrees in law and political science, serving in the Ethiopian legation during the fascist Italian occupation.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aklilu signed the United Nations Charter on behalf of Ethiopia in San Francisco in 1945 and skillfully negotiated at the UN for the return of the Ogaden and Eritrea. Appointed Prime Minister in 1961, he was the principal administrative architect behind the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa in 1963. On November 23, 1974, following the military coup, he was summarily executed alongside sixty senior officials by the Derg.