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00:00This Thursday marks 50 years since former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed,
00:06overthrowing a monarchy that had ruled the country for 700 years.
00:10The Marxist-Leninist military junta known as the Derg seized power, and then tens of
00:15thousands died at the hands of the new regime, which ruled until its own overthrow in 1991.
00:22For more analysis on this, we can bring in Martin Plaut, who's a Senior Research Fellow
00:27at the University of London and the former Africa Editor for the BBC World Service.
00:32Thank you very much for speaking to us on France 24.
00:35Selassie is considered by many to be one of the greatest modernisers of Ethiopia, but
00:40he also has his critics who point out that he let people starve to death during several
00:44major famines.
00:46Tell us about his legacy.
00:47Well, he was someone, as you rightly say, who linked the country back to almost biblical
00:53times, because the second, who was the emperor that he took over from in 1913, when he died
01:03– well, actually, it was three years later that Haile Selassie takes over – saw himself
01:10as the successor to biblical emperors that linked themselves back to the king, King Solomon.
01:16So he was somebody of enormous dignity who saw Ethiopia through some of the most terribly
01:24difficult times, the invasion of Ethiopia by the Italians in 1935 under Mussolini, and
01:32he then went into exile in Britain, only returning when Britain and her allies like South Africa
01:39put the emperor back on the throne with the help of Ethiopian guerrillas.
01:45But he was also seen as somebody who guarded the dignity of Africa itself.
01:51Ethiopia was the one country that was never colonized.
01:54It remained independent throughout the colonial period.
01:58And Haile Selassie, in a sense, retained his dignity and sense of worth of Africa.
02:04And for that reason, people in Africa revere him as a hugely important leader.
02:09Well, it's not just the people of Africa.
02:12The Rastafarian movement, which was born in Jamaica, also idolizes him.
02:17Tell us more about that.
02:18Well, that goes back to his original name.
02:22Raz means prince, and Tafari was his original name.
02:25He took on the name Haile Selassie when he became the emperor.
02:31The Rastafarians see themselves as linked to his time, and he allowed them to come and
02:36live in parts of Ethiopia, and they still look back to Raz Tafari as a sort of father
02:43figure of their own culture.
02:46But he always found them slightly amusing and odd.
02:48I mean, they weren't a really important part of Ethiopian culture.
02:53And as he rightly said, there were elements of his rule which were poor.
02:58I mean, he didn't really deal with the famine of 1973 to 1974, when 200,000 people died
03:06with any great success.
03:07I mean, he was compassionate.
03:10I met somebody who actually went to see him and personally appealed to him to give aid
03:17and assistance to the people, and he did indeed.
03:22He just waved his hand, and an assistant came along, and the aid was forthcoming.
03:28I would say that my friend was then asked to go and help see the imperial lions, which
03:35he did.
03:36He had a group of lions he used to feed by hand, and he went to see them as well, which
03:41was quite an amusing incident.
03:43But he was somebody of great stature.
03:46He worked with Britain.
03:47He was a founding father of the United Nations as well.
03:52Ethiopia becomes a founding member of it.
03:55So he was somebody who was very much part of the old order and of the new order in Ethiopia,
04:03but then finally made a tragic error in refusing to allow regional autonomy in Eritrea, and
04:12that led to a terrible war, which was one of the unmarked reasons why he was finally
04:17overthrown by the army.
04:21And tell us a bit about what came next.
04:23I mean, the junta, how has this all played a part on what we know of Ethiopia now?
04:31Well, the junta under Mengistu was appallingly savage in its repression of any kind of resistance.
04:38Mengistu himself has now fled to Zimbabwe, where he lives, although many in Ethiopia
04:43would like him to be brought back to face his crimes.
04:47I don't think he ever will.
04:50And the Derg repressed every kind of resistance, and in itself that set off a chain of events
04:58which finally saw the overthrow of the military regime in 1991.
05:02Now, Haile Selassie was taken out by the Derg, was executed, was buried in the palace grounds.
05:10Some even said under a toilet, which is possibly untrue.
05:14But it indicated how badly he was treated, with no respect whatsoever.
05:19And his own family have asked for him to be rehabilitated.
05:24He was later dug up, his body was dug up, and was placed in the cathedral in Ethiopia,
05:33in Addis Ababa.
05:34And that is, it is, it is still a place of reverence.
05:37There are many in Ethiopia who still look back on the days of the emperors, one of,
05:43you know, of stability, even though there were difficult times and there were, you know,
05:49there was a war and this terrible famine.
05:52It was also something which people don't really remark on very much.
05:55But actually, you know, slavery continued throughout Haile Selassie's reign.
06:00I mean, I have photographs of some of the slaves bringing tribute to be paid into the
06:06war fund for Haile Selassie when he fought the Italians.
06:10So he's a very contradictory figure, one who links the ancient past of Ethiopia to its
06:17current situation, and therefore is, of course, highly controversial, but still a figure of
06:25great respect across Africa.
06:28And let's just focus on Ethiopia these days.
06:31I mean, it's no stranger to conflict.
06:34We've seen the violence in the Tigray region in recent years.
06:37There's also violence along the border with Sudan.
06:41Perhaps this is a loaded question, but how do you see Ethiopia coming out of this?
06:45And will it ever reach a kind of stability?
06:48Well, Ethiopia has never been really a stable country.
06:54The princes always used to fight each other.
06:56And after the Menelik regime came, the emperor came, was in in the 19th century, they expanded
07:06to a huge area, the size of Ethiopia doubled, if not trebled.
07:11And they took in, from being, say, a dozen nationalities, they took in nearly 90 nationalities.
07:16And I can imagine how destabilizing that has been.
07:20And the fight between the center and the periphery, in a sense, and all these different groups,
07:26has continued ever since.
07:29At the same time, it is growing fast now under Prime Minister Abiy.
07:33There are a lot of questions about how he has ruled as well, and he is now in conflict
07:40with Somalia, over whether Somaliland should become an independent state, which is a very
07:47controversial issue.
07:49The current prime minister would like to have an Ethiopian navy once more, even though it
07:53has no coastline.
07:54So there are all sorts of strange elements to the Ethiopian situation.
08:00And the Egyptians are now on a collision course with the Ethiopians, because a huge dam has
08:09been built across the Blue Nile.
08:11Now it's only a hydroelectric dam, so it doesn't use the water, but the Egyptians are furious
08:17that they do not any longer control one of the main tributaries to the Nile, which is,
08:23in essence, their only source of water, since almost no water falls on Egypt itself.
08:28So you can imagine this is a very, very difficult situation for the Ethiopians to find themselves
08:35in.
08:36They are enormously resourceful people, they have great intelligence and capability to
08:42overcome the most difficult circumstances, and I'm sure that in due course Ethiopia will
08:48be a powerful and prosperous country, and remain a leader of Africa.
08:52All right.
08:53Well, on that note, we'll have to leave it there.
08:55Thank you very much, Martin Laut, from the University of London.