By: James Aitchison

From 1270 to 1974, Ethiopia was ruled by a dynasty which claimed descent from the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.  For 700 years, despite no evidence to support its legitimacy, the Solomonic Dynasty dominated this impoverished country.

His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lion of Judah, Lord of Lords, Defender of the Faith, Elect of God, was born on 23 July 1892.  He ascended his throne in 1930.

Despite the fact he claimed to modernise his nation, an estimated two million slaves still existed in the early 1930s.

Rather like his fellow dictator Chiang Kai Shek of China, Selassie promoted himself as a modern, reforming leader.  He introduced Ethiopia’s first written constitution in 1931, which only served to keep power in the hands of the nobility.  This, the constitution stressed, would prevail “until the people are in a position to elect themselves.”

Haile Selassie constantly strutted the world stage.  He secured Ethiopia’s admission into the League of Nations.  When Italy’s Benito Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935, hoping Ethiopia would provide a bridge between Italy’s Eritrean and Somaliland colonies, Selassie became the world’s first anti-Fascist icon.  When the Italians employed chemical targeting Red Cross field hospitals, Selassie garnered even more sympathy.  In 1936, Time magazine named him Man of the Year. 

While World War II raged, Selassie lived in exile in England in Fairfield House, Bath, which he later donated as a residence for the aged.  In May 1941, with British military help and the Italians defeated, Selassie returned to Addis Ababa in triumph.  Soon after slavery and slave-trading were officially abolished.

After the War, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations.  Selassie again attempted to modernise his country but it was still a feudal nation.  The nobility and church leaders rejected his tax reforms, eager to resume their pre-war privileges.  And when he did secure land tax reforms, the burden was passed by landowners to their peasants.

The more things changed, the more they remained the same.

Meanwhile, Selassie’s image around the world grew.  In a bizarre gesture to the United States, he despatched Ethiopian troops to help American armed forces in the Korean War.

In 1955 he revised the Constitution, this time enshrining all effective power to him, while the lower house of parliament became an elected body.  He introduced modern education and tried to improve relations between the state and various ethnic groups.  Despite these measures, the peasants were powerless.  Eritrea wanted independence and a civil war brewed.

In 1963, Selassie presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, headquartered in Addis Ababa.  That year he addressed the United Nations, enjoying enormous respect and prestige on the world stage.

Over the previous two decades, Ethiopia had received more than US$400 million dollars in aid, US$140 million for the Ethiopian military, and US$240 million for domestic assistance. 

Few benefits, it seemed, filtered down to the peasantry.

While Selassie was preoccupied with foreign affairs, Communism was spreading its tentacles within Ethiopia among the intelligentsia and students returning from abroad.  The peasant population became increasingly resentful and rebellious.  The domestic situation worsened in the 1970s, when common human rights abuses, poor prison conditions and torture of political dissidents intensified.  Meanwhile, the Ethiopian army carried out atrocities against Eritrean separatists. 

Between 1972 and 1974, more than 80,000 Ethiopians died in a famine.  Some believed the emperor was unaware of its extent and that corrupt officials had covered it up. 

In February 1974, four days of riots spilled onto the streets against sudden economic inflation.  Alarmed, Selassie finally acted.  He calmed the public by reducing petrol prices and freezing basic commodity prices, but when he refused a 33% wage hike for the military, the army mutinied.

A military junta placed Selassie under house arrest in his Grand Palace where, on 27 August, he was strangled in his bed.  The junta announced that Selassie had died of respiratory failure.

In the coup, much of the Royal Family was imprisoned, executed or exiled. 

The military junta claimed Selassie had salted away US$11 billion dollars in Swiss banks, while records revealed his net worth was just £22,000.

Selassie is often depicted in Rastafarian religious lore.  Time magazine listed him in the “Top 25 Political Icons of All Time.”

Was Selassie a noble leader whose best intentions were frustrated by war and famine, or was he

a charismatic charlatan who swanned around the world while his people suffered?

The jury is still out.