The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat

by Ryzard Kapuscinski

  Yet the strange thing, Mr. Richard, was that His Most Venerable Highness said nothing. He heard it all, but he did not say a word. He kept silent, which meant that he was still giving Germame a chance. But Germame could no longer return to the road of obedience. Eventually, the dignitaries from Sidamo reappeared. They bore a report that Germame had gone too far: he had begun turning uncultivated acreage over to landless peasants, he was seizing private property by force. Germame had turned out to be a communist. Oh, what a grave matter, my good sir! Today he gives away wasteland, tomorrow the property of landowners, and he will finish with the Imperial holdings! Now His Most Benevolent Majesty could hold his tongue no longer. Germame was summoned to the capital for the Hour of Assignments and sent down to be governor of Jijiga, where he couldn’t give away land because the only inhabitants were nomads. During the ceremony, Germame committed an offense that should have awakened the utmost vigilance in His August Majesty: after hearing his appointment read, Germame failed to kiss the monarch’s hand. Unfortunately . . .

  It was then, he says, that Germame hatched his conspiracy. He hated Germame, and yet he also admired the man. There was something about him that drew people to him. Burning faith, a gift for persuasion, courage, decisiveness, keenness. Thanks to these characteristics he stood out against the gray, servile, fearful mass of yes-men and flatterers that filled the Palace. The first person Germame won over to his plan was his older brother, General Mengistu Neway, the chief of the Imperial Guard, an officer of fearless character and uncommon masculine good looks. Then the brothers gained the cooperation of the head of the Imperial Police, General Tsigue Dibou, the chief of Palace security, Colonel Workneh Gebayehu, and other members of the Emperor’s inner circle. Working in strict secrecy, the conspirators set up a revolutionary council that numbered twenty-four people at the time of the coup. Officers of the Select Imperial Guard and the Palace security service made up the majority. Mengistu was the oldest at forty-four, but the younger Germame remained in command until the end.

  The man who is telling me all this claims that Makonen started to suspect something and reported it to the Emperor. Then Haile Selassie summoned Colonel Workneh and asked him if it was true, but Workneh answered, “Not at all.” Workneh was one of the Emperor’s “personal people”—the monarch had lifted him straight up from the nether regions of society into the Palace chambers and had limitless confidence in him. He was probably the only man the Emperor really trusted. Suspicion of everyone is tiring; there has to be someone to trust, someone to feel at ease with. Furthermore, the Emperor discounted Makonen’s reports because at the time he was directing his suspicions not at the Neway brothers, but at someone else: the dignitary Endelkachew, who lately seemed enervated, gloomy, anxious, drained of his usual spirit. Acting on his suspicions, the Emperor added Endelkachew to the traveling party so that he could keep an eye on him during the visit to Brazil.

  My informant reminds me that the details of what happened next can be found in the testimony delivered by General Mengistu before the court martial. After the Emperor’s departure, Mengistu handed out weapons to the officers of his Guard and instructed them to wait for further orders. It was Tuesday, the thirteenth of December. That evening, in the Empress Menen’s residence, Haile Selassie’s family and a group of high dignitaries gathered for supper. As they sat down at the table, Mengistu’s messenger arrived with news that the Emperor had fallen ill during his trip, that he was dying, and that everyone should meet in the Palace to discuss the situation. When they had all assembled there, they were arrested. Meanwhile, officers of the Guard were arresting other dignitaries at their homes. But, as so often happens in a nervous situation, many dignitaries were forgotten. Several managed to escape from the city or to hide in friends’ houses. Furthermore, the perpetrators of the coup were slow to cut off the telephones, and the Emperor’s people had a chance to communicate and organize themselves. They were able to notify the Emperor that very night through the British Embassy. Haile Selassie broke off his visit and started for home, but without hurrying. He was giving the revolution time to collapse.

  The following day, at noon, the Emperor’s eldest son and the heir to the throne, Asfa Wossen, read a proclamation on the radio in the name of the rebels. Asfa Wossen was a weak, compliant man with no views of his own. There was animosity between him and his father, and it was whispered that the Emperor had doubts about whether Asfa was indeed his son. Something didn’t quite fit in the dates of the Emperor’s journeys and the time the Empress was blessed with her first child. Later, the forty-year-old son would try to justify himself to his father by saying that the rebels had forced him at gunpoint to read the proclamation. “In the last years,” Asfa Wossen read from what Germame had written for him, “stagnancy has reigned in Ethiopia. An atmosphere of discontent and disappointment has spread among peasants, merchants, office workers, in the army and the police, among students, all through society. There is no progress being made anywhere, in any quarter. This results from the fact that a handful of dignitaries have locked themselves into a course of egoism and nepotism, instead of working for the good of the whole community. The people of Ethiopia have waited for the day when poverty and backwardness would cease to be, but nothing has been achieved after innumerable promises. No other nation has borne so much in patience. . . . ” Asfa Wossen announced that a People’s Government had been formed, and he declared himself its head. But very few people had radios in those days, and the words of the proclamation drowned without a ripple. The city was quiet. Business thrived, the normal bustle and disorder reigned in the streets. Few people had heard anything, and those who had did not know what to think about the whole affair. For them it was a Palace matter, and the Palace had always been inaccessible, unreachable, impenetrable, beyond understanding, on a different planet.

  That very day Haile Selassie flew to Monrovia, Liberia, and made radio contact with his son-in-law General Abiye Abebe, the governor of Eritrea. In the meantime this son-in-law had been conducting talks with a group of generals who, from the bases surrounding the capital, were preparing an assault on the rebels. Generals Merid Mengesha, Assefa Ayena, and Kebede Gebre, all relatives of the Emperor, led this group. My informant tells me that the coup was staged by the Guard and that there was sharp antagonism between the Guard and the army. The Guard was enlightened and well paid, the army ignorant and poor. Now the generals take advantage of this antagonism to hurl the army against the Guard. They tell the soldiers, “The Guard wants power so it can exploit you.” What they say is cynical, but it convinces the army. The soldiers shout, “Let us perish for our Emperor!” Zeal drives the battalions about to go to their death.

  On Thursday, the third day of the coup, the regiments loyal to the generals enter the suburbs of the capital. Indecision in the rebel camp. Mengistu gives no orders for defense; he doesn’t want blood to be spilled. The city remains peaceful, with normal traffic in the streets. An airplane circles overhead dropping leaflets. The leaflets contain the text of the anathema that the Patriarch Basilios, head of the Church and friend of the Emperor, has pronounced on the rebels. The Emperor has already flown from Monrovia to Fort-Lamy, Chad. He receives a message from his son-in-law that he can fly on to Asmara. In Asmara things are peaceful and everyone is waiting submissively. But his DC-6 loses an engine. He decides to proceed on three engines. At noon Mengistu comes to the university to meet the students. He shows them a piece of dry bread. “This,” he says, “is what we fed to the dignitaries today, so that they will know what our people live on. You must help us.” Shooting breaks out in the city. The battle for Addis Ababa begins. Hundreds meet death in the streets.

  Friday, the sixteenth of December, is the last day of the coup. Fighting between army and Guard regiments has been going on since morning. The revolutionary council defends itself in the Palace. The assault on the Palace begins in the afternoon. A battalion of tanks, commanded by the Emperor’s son-in-law Captain Dereji Haile-Mariam, leads the assault. �
�Surrender, you dogs!” cries the captain from the turret of his tank. He falls, cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire. Shells explode inside the Palace. Smoke, flames, and a terrible din fill the corridors and chambers. Further de fense is impossible. The rebels burst into the Green Chamber, where the dignitaries from the Emperor’s circle have been held prisoner since Tuesday. The rebels open fire. Eighteen of the people who had been closest to the Emperor die. Now the leaders of the conspiracy and scattered regiments of the Guard leave the Palace grounds and withdraw from the city toward the eucalyptus woods on the Entoto Hills. Evening draws near. The airplane carrying the Emperor lands in Asmara.

  A. W.:

  Oh, our loyal and humble people gave heartwarming proof of their devotion to His Most Praiseworthy Highness on that day of judgment, Mr. Richard. Because when the crushed infidels abandoned the Palace and fled to the neighboring woods, the populace, inspired by our Patriarch, set off in pursuit. Mind you, they had no tanks or cannon, so they grabbed whatever they could and joined the chase. Sticks, stones, pikes, daggers, everything went into action. The people of the streets, whom His Kindly Majesty used to shower with such generous alms, took furiously and hatefully to breaking the crazed heads of the calumniators and rebels who wanted to deprive them of God and prepare them for goodness knows what sort of life. If His Majesty were no longer there, who would give alms and fortifying words of comfort?

  Following the bloody trail of the fugitives, the city dwellers drew village folk after them, so that you could see peasants with whatever weapons they could get their hands on—sticks, knives—cursing the slanderers. The peasants threw themselves into battle to avenge the affront to their generous ruler. Surrounded bands of the Guard defended themselves in the woods while their ammunition held out; later some gave themselves up, and others perished at the hands of the soldiers and the mob. Three thousand people, or perhaps as many as five thousand, ended up in prison, and twice that number died, to the joy of hyenas and jackals that came from far away to roam the woods in search of food. For a long time those woods laughed and howled all night long.

  And those who had insulted His Unrivaled Majesty went straight to hell, my friend. General Dibou, for example, fell during the attack on the Palace and the mob hung his body in front of the gate of the First Division’s base. Later it came out that after Colonel Workneh left the Palace, he was surrounded in the suburbs. They wanted to take him alive. But he didn’t give in, Mr. Richard. He was shooting until the end. He even managed to kill a few soldiers. Then, when he was down to his last bullet, he put the barrel of the gun into his mouth, fired, and fell dead. They hung his body from a tree in front of Saint George’s Cathedral. It may strain credulity, but His Highness could never bring himself to believe that Workneh had betrayed him. It was whispered afterward that even after many months the Emperor would summon servants to his bedroom late at night and ask them to call for the Colonel.

  His Majesty flew into Addis Ababa on Saturday evening, when shooting could still be heard in the city and rebels were being executed in the squares. There was fatigue on our monarch’s face, care and sorrow over the wrong that had been done him. He rode in his car, in the middle of a column of tanks and armored vehicles. All the citizens came out to pay humble and imploring homage. The whole city was kneeling on the ground, the people beating the sidewalks with their foreheads, and as I knelt in that crowd I heard moans, cries of woe, sighs, and wailing. No one dared look up into the face of our honorable monarch. At the gates of the Palace, Prince Kassa, who was hardly guilty, who had fought and had clean hands, kissed the Emperor’s shoes. That same night His Unrivaled Highness ordered that his favorite lions be shot, because instead of defending the Palace they had admitted the traitors.

  And now you ask about Germame. That evil spirit, together with his brother and a certain Captain Baye of the Imperial Guard, fled the city and remained in hiding for a week. They traveled only at night, for a price of five thousand dollars had immediately been put on their heads and everyone was looking for them, since that is a great deal of money. They tried to make their way south, probably intending to cross into Kenya. But after a week, as they sat hidden in the bushes—not having eaten for several days and fainting from thirst, afraid to show themselves in any village to get food and water—they were captured by peasants who had been beating the bush to find them. As Mengistu later testified, Germame decided to end it all right there. Germame, according to this survivor of the old regime, understood that he had gotten a step ahead of history, that he had walked more quickly than others, and he knew that someone who strides ahead of history with a gun in his hand is bound to perish. And he probably preferred that he and his fellow fugitives see to their own deaths. So when the peasants rushed forward to capture them, Germame shot Baye, then he shot his brother, and finally he shot himself.

  The peasants thought they had lost their reward, because it was a reward for live capture, and they saw three corpses. However, only Germame and Baye were dead. Mengistu lay with his face covered with blood, but he was still alive. They rushed them to the capital and carried Mengistu into a hospital. His Majesty was informed of all this, and when he heard it he said that he wanted to see Germame’s body. Accordingly, the corpse was brought to the Palace and thrown on the steps in front of the main entrance. His Majesty came out and stood for a long time, looking at the body that was lying there. He remained silent, gazing without saying a word. There were some others with him, and no one heard a sound. Then the Emperor turned, as if he had been startled, and went back into the main building, ordering his lackeys to close the door. Later I saw Germame’s body hanging from a tree in front of Saint George’s Cathedral. A crowd was standing around jeering at the traitors, hooting and raising vulgar cries. Mengistu was still alive. When he left the hospital, he faced a court martial. During the trial he behaved proudly and, contrary to Palace custom, showed neither any signs of humility nor any desire to obtain His Distinguished Majesty’s pardon.

  He said he wasn’t afraid of death because when he decided to raise his head against injustice and attempt the coup, he expected to die. He said they had wanted to start a revolution, and since he would not live to see it he offered his blood so that the green tree of justice could sprout from it. They hanged him on the thirtieth of March, at dawn, in the main square. They hanged six other Guard officers along with him. He didn’t look like himself at all. His brother’s bullet had torn out his eye and shattered his whole face, which had grown a disheveled black beard. The remaining eye, under the pressure of the noose, squirted out of its socket.

  They say that during the first days after the Emperor’s return an unusual agitation reigned in the Palace. Charmen cleaned the floors, sanding soaked-in bloodstains from the parquet. Lackeys took down torn and partly burned curtains, trucks removed heaps of broken furniture and boxes full of empty shells, glaziers installed new windows and mirrors, masons replastered walls pockmarked by bullets. The smell of powder and smoke gradually disappeared. For a long time the ceremonial funerals of those who had preserved their loyalty to the end continued. At the same time the bodies of insurgents were buried at night in hidden, unknown places. Most of the dead had perished accidentally. Hundreds of gaping children, women on the way to market, and men going to work or idly sunning themselves had perished during the street fighting. Once the shooting had died down, the army patrolled the quiet city that only now, long after the fact, was beginning to feel the horror and the shock. They also say that later came weeks of fearsome arrests, exhaustive investigations, and brutal interrogations. Fear and uncertainty reigned. People whispered and gossiped, recalling details of the coup and embellishing them as their fantasy and courage allowed. Yet they embellished in secret, for all discussions of the latest events were officially banned, and the police, with whom one could not joke around even in the best of times (which these assuredly were not), became even more dangerous and efficient than usual in the effort to clear themselves of accusations that they ha
d conspired. There was no lack of those willing to supply the police stations with additional terrified clients.

  Everyone was waiting to see what the Emperor would do and declare next. On his return to the fearful, treasontainted capital, he had expressed his pain and pity over the small group of lost sheep that had recklessly strayed from the herd and lost their way in a stony and bloodstained wilderness.

  G. O.-E.:

  It had always been an act of punishable impudence to look the Emperor straight in the eye, but now after what had happened even the greatest daredevil in the Palace would not have tried it. Everyone felt ashamed of having allowed the conspiracy to occur and fearful of His Majesty’s righteous anger. And this half-frightened, half-shameful inability to look each other in the eye showed in everyone’s attitude toward everyone else. Everyone succumbed to it. Because at first no one knew where he stood, which is to say no one knew whom the venerable Emperor would accept and whom he would reject, whose loyalty he would confirm and whose he wouldn’t acknowledge, to whom he would give his ear and to whom he would deny all access, and so everyone, unsure of everyone else, preferred not to look anyone in the eye. And so not looking, not seeing, watching the floor, staring at the ceiling, inspecting the tips of one’s shoes, and gazing through windows into the distance were the order of the day in the Palace. Now, if I started to look at anyone, it would immediately awaken suspicious, questioning thoughts in him: Why is he watching me so carefully? What does he suspect me of? What does he have against me? If I watch someone else, even in complete innocence or out of mere curiosity, he will not believe in my innocence or curiosity or that I’m simply following the human instinct to gawk. Instead, he will think me too eager, suspicious, and to get the jump on me he will immediately seek to clear himself. And how can he clear himself except by dirtying the one he thought was out to dirty him?