Word: wassan
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...small, isolated group of officers." According to Haile Selassie, the rebels' own proclamations demanding an end to oppression and poverty amounted to "approval of the program of progress in education, health and social welfare that we have been implementing all the time." His son Crown Prince Asfa Wassan had broadcast for the rebels "at the point of a gun," according to an official communique. To emphasize that he was back in charge, the Emperor ordejred the bullet-riddled corpse of a rebel chieftain hanged in a public square...
...state following a coup d'état." Glumly, the Emperor lunched in his Sāo Paulo hotel room on lobster thermidor, stared out the window and pondered the unkindest cut of all. The revolt had apparently been led by his own son and heir, Crown Prince Asfa Wassan, 44. By that night the Lion of Judah was back on his private DC-6B and bound for home...
...plotters had a problem: in Coptic Christian Ethiopia, only an acknowledged descendant of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba would be accepted as a proper ruler by the 90% illiterate populace. After nervous speculation, the plotters approached Crown Prince Asfa Wassan himself, knowing that father and son have disliked each other for years. The Emperor had always favored a younger son Prince Makonnen (who was killed in an automobile accident three years ago), made it obvious that he considered Asfa Wassan none too bright, often subjected him to public humiliation. When Asfa Wassan wishes to speak to his father...
...plotters bided their time (and even put down one subplot to assassinate the Emperor last year). But Haile Selassie's trip to remote Brazil seemed ideal. One morning before dawn the Imperial Guard, led by rebel officers, seized strong points in Addis Ababa, including all communication centers. Asfa Wassan named Imru as Premier and went on the radio to explain that the purpose of the coup was to end "3,000 years of injustice . . . The Ethiopian people have waited patiently to be freed of oppression, poverty and ignorance." The Crown Prince promised to set up a true constitutional monarchy...
Crown Prince Asfa Wassan would doubtless dip his nose an inch or two lower in the dirt on his next meeting with father. Haile Selassie made it scornfully clear that he considered Asfa Wassan only a dupe of others, "acting under coercion." The seeds of unrest among the educated minority of Ethiopians were still there and would grow. But it would take a stronger man than Asfa Wassan to snatch power from the little Lion of Judah...