The Fate of Haile Selassie's Great-Grandchildren
By Dean E. Hinmon

         I first saw Haile Selassie a few months before his eightieth birthday as he walked across the road from his palace in Addis Ababa. The driver of my land rover stopped and we climbed out to stand at attention, as the law required. Despite his five foot four physical stature, his royal bearing and his loyal escort of machine gun toting guards made him truly the picture of all that he was proclaimed--the Conquering Lion of Judah, King of Kings, Elect of God, the Emperor of Ethiopia. Little did I know then that in three years a group of young Ethiopian officers would remove Selassie from the palace and imprison him in a mud hut where he spent most of the year he had yet to live.

         The Lion's roar was stopped, but a new sound filled the city of Addis Ababa as Marxist Reds hacked and shot their way to power and ruled through a committee called the derg. The Marxist Whites fought back for control. Gunfire could be heard day and night. The bodies of both sides, as well as the bodies of innocent citizens, lie on the streets each morning. The blood flow spoke to the people. Death was cheap. Worth no more than a whispered word, or the wrong look of an eye.

        A third group, the Loyalists, laid plans to put Selassie back on the throne. When he died in August of 1975, the Loyalists turned to his descendants. But it was too late for many of his children and his grandchildren, for many had been found by the Red Marxists and killed. Even the very young great-grandchildren had been marked for death, but little was known about their fate. The news media had only the questions: Could the Loyalists find the children, but even if they found them, could they get them out of the country?

        Finally, after a drought of news from Ethiopia, the derg invited ninety correspondents to the country so they might tell the story of the new Marxist government "of the people". They were housed in the Ghion Hotel. But the correspondents soon learned that "housed" was only a euphemism for "imprisoned". They each were provided a guide. But they soon learned that "guide" was only a euphemism for "guard".

         And so this juncture of time and place sets the stage where blood is let in the name of justice as well as power. To this stage come the actors--correspondents and Ethiopian officials. Each bring their own script of, honesty or deception, generosity or greed, and love or hate. And at least one carries the biting need for revenge. The story centers on two Americans who find romance in their struggle not to lose life itself. The stage is real. All the characters are fictional. But some of their stories did indeed happen. The others very well may have.

Author DEAN HINMON

Dean Hinmon was a professor at the University of Minnesota for many years and on one of many sojourns away worked for the UN in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for more than a year and thus was born his book, THE FATE OF HAILE SELASSIE'S GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN. He left the University a few years ago to write full time and yet managed to work as a school psychologist on an Alaskan island forty miles from Siberia, sail in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and live for a year in an intentional community in the Ozarks. He presently lives in southern New Mexico high over the Rio Grande River, near the Jornada Del Muerto Mountains, and contemplates what lies on the other side.