Massacre in the Night

In the hours around midnight, soldiers kept arriving at the stone-walled Akaki prison with truckload after truckload of prisoners. There were repeated bursts of machine-gun fire. Only the next morning did the stunned citizens of Addis Ababa hear the radio announcement that the ruling Provisional Military Council, after nine months of relative moderation, had summarily executed 59 members of the regime of deposed Emperor Haile Selassie. "My God," said a Western diplomat in the Ethiopian capital, "they've wiped out the old aristocracy in a single stroke."

The death list included two former Premiers, twelve former provincial governors, 18 generals and a grandson of Haile Selassie. Also executed were Prince Asrate Kassa, 56, who once ranked second in power (after the Emperor), and Ras Mesfin Sileshi, probably the country's second richest man (after the Emperor). Haile Selassie, who had spent two months this year confined to a mud hut at Fourth Army Division headquarters in Addis Ababa, remained under house arrest last week at the Grand Palace.

Most important--and most surprising--among the victims was Lieut. General Aman Michael Andom, 50, the moderate and popular front man for the Provisional Military Council, who for the preceding ten weeks had been chief of state, head of government and Defense Minister. Known as the "Desert Lion" because of his successful campaigns against the Somalis during the border fighting of the early 1960s, Aman had taken a conciliatory approach to such issues as student dissent, the fate of the detained ex-Ministers, and above all the problems faced by his home province of Eritrea, which has been torn by secessionist guerrilla violence ever since Ethiopia annexed it in 1962.

The first hint of trouble had come only six days earlier, when Ethiopia's press announced that Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose name was previously unknown, had been the "true moving force" behind the nine-month-old "creeping coup" against Haile Selassie.

Practically nothing is yet known about the 36-year-old Mengistu except that he speaks for the council, a band of 120 men who range in rank from private to major. Though the council seems to be divided over exactly how Ethiopia should be ruled, a majority of its members obviously favor sweeping social reform. As Ethiopian nationalists, they also want to put down by force the Eritrean guerrilla movement. Aman refused to authorize the council to execute prisoners as it saw fit, and was reluctant to send troop reinforcements to Eritrea because he felt the problem of secession should be solved by granting the province greater autonomy.

Accordingly, the council announced that Aman had been relieved of his duties and was under house arrest.

No Surrender. On the fatal Saturday, Aman remained inside his concrete bungalow, protected by a loyal detachment of Third Division troops. "I will never give myself up," he had told a relative a few days earlier. "I will die like a soldier." Some time after nightfall, Fourth Division troops under Mengistu's command attacked Aman's house with tanks, armored cars, bazookas and machine guns, and in the ensuing two-hour firefight the general was killed. Foreign observers in Addis Ababa speculated that certain members of the council may then have panicked and ordered the mass executions to take place immediately in an effort to diffuse the impact of Aman's death.

To replace General Aman, the council named Brigadier General Teferi Benti, 53, a career soldier who commanded the Eritrea-based Second Army Division. A hard-liner who can be trusted to follow the orders of Major Mengistu, General Teferi in his first order sent 7,000 troops to reinforce the Second Division, possibly for a showdown with the Eritrean secessionists.

After the shootings, the council announced that it would soon convene military courts to try the remaining 150-odd members of the old order who are still imprisoned. There were reports that Haile Selassie, now 82, might be on the list. For months the council had been trying to force the stubborn old Emperor to surrender the hundreds of millions of dollars that he had hidden in Swiss bank accounts. Late last week it was reported from Addis Ababa that he had at last agreed to repatriate the funds, perhaps in return for permission to go into exile for the rest of his days.

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