Haile Selassie and Ethiopia
Ethiopian Losses from the Italian invasion and occupation
Ethiopia listed the following losses from 1936 to 1941:
275,000 Killed in action
17,800 Women, children, and civilians killed by bombings
78,500 Patriots (guerrilla fighters) killed during the occupation 1936–1942
30,000 Massacre of February 1937
35,000 Persons who died in concentration camps
24,000 Patriots executed by Summary Courts
300,000 Persons who died of privations due to the destruction of their villages
760,300 TOTAL
In addition to human loss, Ethiopia claimed the loss of 2,000 churches, 525,000 houses, and the slaughter and/or confiscation of 6,000,000 beef cattle; 7,000,000 sheep and goats; 1,000,000 horses and mules; and 700,000 camels.
Haile Selassie
As was the case with so many small countries, Ethiopia was caught up the eddy currents of the Cold War between Western Democracy and Communist Russia. Because of concern over control of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, which divides Africa from the Near East, Ethiopia was of interest because of its strategic location. In 1953 the United States opened a US military assistance group to aid Ethiopia in return for the establishment of a strategically important communications center in Ethiopia, the largest high frequency radio installation in the world at the time. The United States provided assistance to Ethiopia’s developing airline, built a new international airport and a university in Addis Ababa, and supplied the Ethiopian Air Force with C-47 transports, T-33 jet trainers, and F-86 jet fighters. By the late 1960s, the high cost of the Vietnam War caused the United States to cut non-essential military spending. The US communications center in Ethiopia had become obsolescent with the advent of satellite communication. As a cost-cutting measure, the United States withdrew much of its previous activities and aid from Ethiopia.
When famine struck the country in the early ’70s, Communist propaganda circulated by Communist sympathizers led Ethiopians to increasingly blame Haile Selassie and his government. In 1974 a group of young officers formed a Soviet-backed Marxist-Leninist junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam. They deposed Haile Selassie in humiliating fashion, imprisoned him and his closest family members, executed over sixty of Selassie’s family members, ministers, and military leaders, and established a one-party Communist state government called the Derg. No word whatsoever concerning the emperor was made public. Haile Selassie died under questionable circumstances. In a press release, the Derg stated the emperor had died of a heart attack while walking in a palace garden and there would be a private burial.
Under Mengistu, hundreds of thousands died during the Red Terror conducted by the Derg with direct military action and the use of hunger as a weapon. Cuban troops of Fidel Castro and Soviet-supplied military hardware were used to help Mengistu put down an uprising in what was called the Ogden War. (During that period, Count Gustaf von Rosen, who some years before had left Ethiopia for other adventures, was killed on the ground by guerrilla fighters near the Sudan border.)
In 1990 the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the end of Soviet support to the Derg. In 1991 Mengistu fled the country and found asylum in Zimbabwe. After a long trial in the High Court of Ethiopia that began in 1994 and ended in 2006, thousands of witnesses were called to testify; more than five thousand former members of the Derg were indicted. Mengistu and seventeen of his officers were convicted of genocide and sentenced to death. Ethiopia is conducting an ongoing, so far unsuccessful effort to have Mengistu extradited from Zimbabwe.
Information about the fate of Haile Selassie emerged after the fall of the Soviet-backed Communist Derg government. In 1992 during renovation of the palace, the body of Haile Selassie was found under a toilet facility where it had been thrown as a last gross insult by the Marxist regime. It is said to have been revealed by witnesses that Haile Selassie was tortured, then garroted in the basement of the palace on August 22, 1975. His remains were recovered and later buried with dignity and ceremony at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia for forty-four years, during which time he worked to modernize his ancient nation, will best be remembered for his impassioned speech before the League of Nations in 1936 which ended with the warning, “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow,” words that rang hauntingly true three short years later, when Fascist Germany and Communist Russia crossed Poland’s border and unleashed World War II.
With the fall of Mengistu’s Communist government, relations with the United States and the United Nations were re-established. In 1994 under a new constitution, Ethiopia held its first multi-party elections to establish a federal republic. The people of Ethiopia continue to work toward modern economic development, world trade, and tourism. Mountainous terrain and lack of good roads still make land transportation difficult, but the Ethiopian Airlines John Robinson helped establish has one of the safest records of any airline. It serves thirty-eight domestic airfields and forty-two international destinations.